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Trump Cites ‘Great Progress’ in North Korea Nuclear Talks

LONDON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was making “great progress” in denuclearization talks with North Korea, citing what he called a “very nice note” he received last week from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, though it made no mention of nuclear weapons.

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Trump Cites ‘Great Progress’ in North Korea Nuclear Talks
By
Julie Hirschfeld Davis
and
Rick Gladstone, New York Times

LONDON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was making “great progress” in denuclearization talks with North Korea, citing what he called a “very nice note” he received last week from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, though it made no mention of nuclear weapons.

In a letter that Trump posted on Twitter along with an English translation, Kim called his summit with the president in Singapore last month “the start of a meaningful journey,” and raised the idea of another such encounter.

“I extend my conviction that the epochal progress in promoting the DPRK-U.S. relations will bring our next meeting forward,” he wrote, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

The tone of the letter was starkly at odds with that of North Korean officials last week in the wake of a visit to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo has toiled, so far unsuccessfully, to negotiate details of the agreement in principle struck by Trump and Kim to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. After his visit, the North said Pompeo had engaged in “gangster-like” tactics and made unilateral demands.

And Thursday, North Korean officials did not show up for a meeting with Americans at the inter-Korean border to discuss the return of remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War, American and South Korean officials said.

Pompeo addressed the negotiations Thursday when he was called to the lectern by Trump, who was holding a final news conference after the NATO summit.

“We had a productive conversation,” Pompeo told reporters. “There remains a great deal of work to do.”

The letter released by Trump is filled with flowery language, but it makes no mention of nuclear weapons or any intention by the North to give them up.

“I deeply appreciate the energetic and extraordinary efforts made by Your Excellency Mr. President for the improvement of relations between the two countries and the faithful implementation of the joint statement,” it said.

In another sign of tensions that belied the public pleasantries exchanged by Kim and Trump, the United States complained to a U.N. sanctions panel this week about what the Trump administration has described as rampant violations of the severe limits on North Korean imports of refined petroleum.

U.N. Security Council diplomats said the United States had submitted evidence to the panel that suggested the North Koreans had furtively imported nearly 1.4 million barrels of refined petroleum this year, roughly triple the permitted amount for 2018.

The evidence, from a declassified U.S. intelligence briefing seen by The New York Times, said the petroleum had been smuggled into North Korea via illicit ship-to-ship transfers at sea. The briefing said it had information that suggested such transfers had been carried out at least 89 times between January and May.

The American complaint, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, asked the sanctions panel to “order an immediate halt to all transfers of refined petroleum products to the D.P.R.K.”

The complaint singled out China and Russia, which have continued to sell refined petroleum to North Korea and historically have resisted the use of sanctions as a pressure tactic.

Whether the Security Council sanctions panel would respond to the U.S. complaint remained unclear.

Enforcement of the North Korean sanctions is considered vital to the Trump administration’s strategy of economic pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The administration has said there would be no letup in the sanctions while the nuclear issue remains unresolved.

Last month, a few days after the Trump-Kim summit had concluded, Pompeo reiterated that position in a trip to South Korea and China.

“We are going to get the complete denuclearization,” Pompeo said. “Only then will there be relief from sanctions.”

China, on the other hand, has indicated it is less inclined to aggressively enforce sanctions on North Korea now that Kim has agreed to negotiate. North Korea gets most of its imports from China.

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