Update 2: North Korean Leader Kim’s full statement (via KCNA):
The decision “to include the great victory of the economic construction and nuclear armed forces construction transfer line” includes the following decisions.
- First, in the course of struggle to carry out the party’s translation, we carried out the nuclear test and the underground nuclear test, the miniaturization and the lightening of the nuclear weapon, and the project for the development of the ultra-large nuclear weapon and the transportation means sequentially and faithfully realized the nuclear weaponization. I declare it solemnly.
- Second, from April 21st, Juche 107 (2018), the nuclear test and the intercontinental ballistic rocket test will be discontinued. North Korea’s nuclear test center will be discarded in order to ensure the transparency of the suspension of the nuclear test.
- Third, the suspension of nuclear testing is an important process for global nuclear disarmament, and the DPRK will join international efforts and efforts to halt the nuclear test altogether.
- Fourth, we will never use nuclear weapons unless there is nuclear threat or nuclear provocation to our country, and in any case we will not transfer nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.
- Fifth, we will concentrate all the efforts to build up a strong socialist economy and mobilize the human and material resources of the country to dramatically raise people’s lives.
- Sixth, we will establish a favorable international environment for the construction of a socialist economy, and will intensify close dialogue and dialogue with neighboring countries and the international community in order to protect the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the world.
There is one small caveat before everyone celebrates. As Vipin Narang notes,
“The precise language here is important. Closing the testing site doesn’t preclude atmospheric nuclear tests for example (or other sites). And missile tests could still be conducted under the guise of space launch vehicles. Language matters— for how it can be potentially flanked.”
Update 1: We suspect the odds below just went way down!!!
* * *
As we detailed earlier, just a few short days after President Trump proclaimed “mission accomplished” in Syria, North Korea’s leader has followed suit, reportedly say the nuclear test site in the north of the country has completed its mission and will be abandoned.
Furthermore, Yonhap reports Kim says no further nuclear tests are needed, and will stop launching test-flights of ICBMson April 21st.
As a reminder, the nuclear test facility in the northern part of the country was potentially a major problem as we noted previously the fact that it was collapsing.
Additionally, KCNA reports that North Korea says it will actively engage dialogue with the international community to achieve peace and refocus on economic growth.
Seems like that trip to Beijing recently made some serious difference!!
While there are few details, it is hard to misinterpret the Korean headlines.
We are sure President Trump will be quick to congratulate Kim (and himself).
Hard to see how this is not a big win for Trump!
For my entire life, every president since Eisenhower has tried to solve the North Korea problem.
It took a Trump to do it.
Donald Trump came from outside the political realm.
Even Ike was a creature of politics; you can’t make 5 star general without playing politics very well.
Instead of credit he is getting frivolous lawsuits filed against him by the DNC.
How would that work, DNC?
Discovery works both ways.
Claim Trump hacked your servers leads to a forced surrender of
those servers to Trump lawyers!
So, it’s all just a PR stunt to suck air from this great day’s accomplishment.
Kim Jong-un understands the nature of Donald Trump’s reality television show better than does the show’s regular audience.
What has Kim actually given up? Their decades-long nuclear weapon program has been successful. They can and have produced the weapons. Everyone now knows that they have them. What has changed is his rhetoric.
No one is sucking air out of an accomplishment. They’re letting air out of a balloon that covers the reality.
Looks like the Eagle just made the Vulture blink
@Spurwing Plover: Don’t you just love Greg’s in-depth analysis of world affairs? He would have been a good Sec of State for Clinton.
Now if this had happened under Obama or Clinton it would make front page headline in the New York Pravda(Times)like rags like TIME and ROLLING STONE would be crowing about it and we would be hearing all week long from the talking heads
@Randy, #4:
North Korea has demonstrated that they have nuclear warheads. Their Hwasong-15, successfully tested last November, has a calculated range of 8,000 miles. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that means, whatever Kim might be saying. He’s shifting his rhetoric because they’ve achieved their goal of becoming a nuclear armed state.
Iran has not. Before the treaty, they were only months away.
@Greg: It seems better than dancing around with his tiny red button, demanding money to be a good little fat boy. You trust Iran…really?
I’d rather not be trusting an Iran without nuclear weapons than with nuclear weapons.
I think it’s wiser to acknowledge and deal with the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea than to pretend we’ve somehow prevented such a thing from happening. It has happened.
@Greg: Having a nuclear war head and being able to hit something with it is something different. You do not know sh_t, yet you continue to post garbage because of your political affiliations instead of real facts.
You do not know what Iran has, but if you do have a small bit of intelligence, you would see that Trump is getting more Arab states involved in the Iran issues. What was your MOS again? Peeling potatoes?
I think we can assume North Korea has also worked on a reasonably effective missile guidance system.
You’re getting cranky. Trump hat too tight? I understand they’re adjustable. You might find instructions on a tag inside.
72B20, though I did my share of potato peeling in basic. Like crawling through the dirt and getting yelled at a lot, it’s probably a universal basic training experience.
@Spurwing Plover:
Then Obama or Hillary would have paid N. Korea hundreds of billions of dollars to tell us to accept their demands, just as Iran did to Obama and Kerry. Only Hillary would have had to wet HER beak in the deal somehow.
@Greg:
You don’t see any advantage to N. Korea to ACT like they’ve resolved all those issues? None of their tests to date have shown any such thing; only that they can shoot a missile a great distance. Proper miniaturization, hardening and targeting has NOT been demonstrated or tested and, therefore, does not exist on a functional basis.
Trump on Twitter:
Uh, no. Two of the three hostages who were just released were arrested and imprisoned by North Korea after you became president.
Weren’t you notified? Maybe it was in one of those daily briefings you skip on a daily basis. Or maybe it happened during one of the 100+ days you’ve been playing golf since your inauguration.
@Greg: The hostages have been released.
Obama also skipped briefings at least 50%of the time. Obama never cared about hostages anywhere that were not deserters.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/9/17333964/north-korea-hostages-release-trump
@Greg: Obama couldn’t even get hostages held by Mexico released. In fact, he wouldn’t even try. He couldn’t get hostages released by his close friends and trusted negotiating partners, the Iranians, without delivering pallets of cash first. He couldn’t get a despicable Army deserter released without putting 5 dangerous terrorists back into action.
Trump is a leader. Obama watched events from behind, then took whatever credit he could.
Trump is a con man, who is getting an assist from a shift in North Korea’s public relations posture. Get back to me when Kim Jong-un has actually eliminated the nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles they’ve spent decades acquiring, and now have.
What do people not understand about Kim Jong-un’s statement at the top of the page?
I’m not suggesting we could have avoided this situation. It’s been coming for a long time, and no presidential administration has ever figured out how to stop it. Including the present one.
@Greg: Obama used the exact failed recycled model of billions for a really stupid nuke deal where do you think those billions were invested? What other little dictator rattled an empty sabre? I know how disappointed you are that Trumps exchange of insults with Kim didn’t have loaded ICBMs hitting Hawaii or Cali, just to prove you and the extreme left media would be correct. Even Vox seems to be giving credit somewhat to this admin. cant you just once be appreciative for good news, just ignore the Trump part, and record employment, people getting off foodstamps and back to work, just ignore what changed the tide be a tiny bit happy for America. Be glad for 3 Americans, stupid enough to go to NK in the first place, being released from Kims brutal work camps.
As far as his model of government well its grand and I am sure everyone wants it, do you have your ticket yet?
@Greg:
You could be right in this case. He conned Un into believing he was about to be vaporized if he didn’t stop being such a turd. What public relations shift caused Un to release three prisoners they were holding for “spying”?
Oh, don’t worry. We will.
Hmmm…. yet it seems THIS administration got Un to come out of his lair and meet with S. Korean President and stop testing. THIS administration developed a strategy and followed it even when most of the world and the domestic haters wanted him out of office for being tough. Peace through strength is not achieved by ending sanctions and delivering pallets and pallets of cash up front.
Testing has ended because it has already provided North Korea with all the data they needed. Beyond that point, further testing is only a waste of the resources required to build your weapons. You can rely on computer modeling. ICBM refinement can be called a satellite launch vehicle program.
@Greg: So you think N. Korea has perfected their guidance, miniaturization and reentry systems. We’ve seen how well computer models work; verification is still needed. No, they aren’t through. Something else is at play. Perhaps he was faced with a military coup. Perhaps China is cutting them loose if he doesn’t behave. Perhaps he is playing it by ear to see if Trump stumbles. However, if he goes to the table and back off because he is unwilling to submit to the known demand, he is in a LOT of trouble.
And Trump made it come about.
What are you willing to bet that they haven’t, for the sake of pinning a merit badge on Donald Trump?
Computer modeling works well enough. We’re talking about the design of first generation nuclear devices, not vastly complex planetary climate systems.
@Greg:
Unlike you liberals and the Nobel Committee, I’m not badging anyone or anything until there has actually been an accomplishment. Henry Ford said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” Obama got a Nobel because he had so much “promise”. But, he was an unmitigated failure.
Trump has promise and that promise is materializing in real accomplishment. No, I don’t award Trump the Nobel until there is something substantial, but it is the height of sore losership to automatically run down everything he without regard for the positive results.
Um… you said they were done.
They will continue to refine their warheads without underground testing. They will continue to improve their missile designs, calling it a peaceful space research program. They will be entirely willing to give up what they no longer need to do. It is hopelessly naive to think otherwise.
It’s best to understand how things really are. Maybe they’ll become less belligerent, feeling less threatened.
@Greg:
They aren’t going to refine them without testing. No one would willingly base their defense on untested weaponry.
FAIL. Weak and silly. Hopelessly naive is believing the pressure Trump is putting on them and promising to relentlessly increase has not caused Un to seek different avenues. You lack the courage to admit Trump has accomplished (even just up to this point) what no one else has been able to do. THAT is naive. Or hatefully stupid.
@Deplorable Me, #23:
North Korea has conducted multiple successful tests of their nuclear devices. The most recent had the destructive power of 10 of the weapons we dropped on Nagasaki.
Their most recent Hwasong-15 test demonstrated the missile has sufficient range to reach the eastern coast of the United States.
If Kim Jong-un is seeking different avenues, he’s doing it as the leader of a totalitarian state that already has nuclear weapons. They haven’t stopped a decades-long nuclear weapons development program just short of their goal. They have attained that goal. He will meet Donald Trump with that attainment already in his pocket.
@Deplorable Me, #14:
Kinda forgetful, aren’t we?
American hostages released from North Korea during the Obama administration:
1. Euna Lee
2. Laura Ling
3. Robert Park
4. Aijalon Gomes
5. Eddie Yong Su Jun
6. Merrill Newman
7. Jeffrey Fowle
8. Kenneth Bae
9. Matthew Miller
10. Sandra Suh
11. Arturo Pierre Martinez
@Greg
Jon Hammar
Andrew Tahmooressi
Two men, one active duty, the other former military, that Mexico jailed for bogus reasons. Tahmooressi suffered from PTSD and was tortured by the Mexicans. Obama MADE NO EFFORT to get them released. Don’t you think since Obama was allowing Mexico to seen all their unwanted, poverty-stricken illegal immigrants to the US he could have effected the release of two boys jailed for misunderstandings the Mexicans exploited?
Why are we taking Donald Trump’s Korea diplomacy seriously?
All he does is lie and break promises. This will be no different.
The short answer? “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
@Greg: Yes Greg, and you are the sucker. Even some of the most resistant Democrats are preaching that candidates should be more supportive of Trump because he is accomplishing a lot and is much more popular than Democrats want to admit. You and the rest of the left has provided the MSM with propaganda which they print. Now the left are believing the “fake news” that they manufactured and the MSM printed and spoke on their 3rd rate programs. Only the “potato peelers” and other uninformed “progressives continue the “Trump lies” stories. They can not face realities as the Clinton ship sinks. They can only stand on the bow and scream as their world sinks under them. (By the way Greg, this was a metaphor. You can look up that definition in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor to enhance your knowledge of the world.)
@Greg: Gosh, all of Trump’s “lies” seem actually be Congressional failures due to Democrats and a few establishment Republicans blocking everything he is trying to do just for the sake of blocking what he wants to do. I would characterize that more as lies of the representatives blocking this agenda who were elected to do what is best for the American people.
The left is living in mortal fear of Trump’s ongoing success. Bringing N.Korea to the negotiating table is a resounding success, regardless of the outcome, because all the demands of N.Korea are known and if it fails, it will be fully on the back of N.Korea. So, my recommendation to you crybabies is to start working on your next phony accusation, because for lack of any candidates with policies anyone but the socialists want, you are going to need it.
A question for the abysmally clueless: Why on earth would Kim Jong-un be upset about John Bolton mentioning our past agreement with Libya as a model for a nuclear deal between North Korea and the United States?
@Greg: I know you love and respect Un because he hates Trump almost as much as you liberals do, but do any of you believe that, without pressure, he is going to placidly to the talks? I didn’t. I won’t be surprised if they fall apart, as they threaten due to the joint maneuvers conducted by the US and S. Korea, even though they already agreed that the maneuvers were pre-planned and not provocative at all. But, that’s how communists act, isn’t it? Communists and liberals, though I am being redundant.
Un is not doing this because he wants to; he’s doing it because he is under PRESSURE to and he will try to weasel out of it any way he can. But, he won’t like the consequences if he does.
TRUMP IS NOW CALLING HIM CHAIRMAN UN.
ROCKET MAN BETTER SUITED HIM
btw before FA’ERS and ol bone spurs go after Mueller check out his time spent as a decorated combat Marine Corps Officer in V.N
@Richard Wheeler: Are you implying every single person that joined the service was a perfect human completely beyond reproach? Everyone of them honest and trustworthy, really every single one? You can take the vet card and put it with the race card and the woman card they are simply humans, and that card doesnt give him a pass on driving an innocent man to suicide. Doesnt give him a pass on hiding the corruption surrounding the uranium deal, gun running to drug cartels ect ect ect, no pass, take your vet card and …….
Trump gets no credit til the job is done, nice that lil kim is willing to talk, but thats all.
@kitt: Veterans get a lot of consideration and benefit of the doubt with me, due to their service, but what Mueller has done to General Flynn alone for the sake of having a scalp to hang and some headlines makes him a despicable person. According to the FBI people who interviewed the General, he never lied, yet Mueller bankrupted him in order to try and force him to lie about Trump. So, two military men here, who is honorable and who is a scumbag?
@Deplorable Me: Liberals have everything labeled organized it is the only way their tiny intellect can view reality, a nice little box for everyone. Rich puts all Vietnam vets in this box a nice little label. All women must vote for Cankles, all blacks must be content with collecting welfare and existing in liberal created slums and poverty.
@kitt:
Well, not exactly. Until McCain opposed Trump, he was a scumbag. Look how they treated Bush. He didn’t get to serve in Vietnam, but he volunteered to. Petraeus was “betrayus”. How much did they all cheer when McChrystal had had enough of Obama the Warlord blocking his opportunity to launch an effective spring offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan (the reason that is the longest war in US history)? Plus, Democrats are the party that hates the military and considers them all war criminals. I’ll bet even Jim Webb was a sh!tbird until he swapped over to the Democrat party.
@Deplorable Me: Mueller fits sweetly in his box scumbag can be all covered up by his sweet label.
You Trumpists can attempt to degrade Mueller—good luck with that-lol
DT gets stupid on this–he loses.–Trump is classless.
@Richard Wheeler: You can quit throwing filth on the honor of the Core by trumpeting its horribly less than honorable members anytime now. We dont have to degrade that landfill , he is doing fine all by himself. The more promises Trump keeps the more unhinged you are becoming, if he isnt careful your state may become a decent place to live again, somewhere you can walk down the sidewalk without stepping in liberal policy created human waste.
There is nothing even remotely “less than honorable” about Robert Mueller. Mueller could serve us as a model of what an honorable man should be. We’re clearly getting to the point where such models are desperately needed; people no longer seem able to recognize the real thing when they see it—to the extent that many have embraced and elevated an imitation that is in many ways the very opposite.
There was certainly nothing “less than honorable” about Mueller’s military career.
The Untold Story of Robert Mueller’s Time in Combat
@Greg: Oh Rah—-Trumpists like Bill Burriss and Kitt attempt to demean and discredit a true HERO like Mueller while blindly following a guy like Trump—sorry for them. Probably too far gone to even read and acknowledge article you posted.
Thanks for your service. Richard
@Richard Wheeler, #41:
I’ve never expected much for my own service but a nod of acknowledgement. (And thanks for that. I’ll nod back in return.) “He went when told to go, and for the most part did what what was expected of him” pretty much sums me up. I went to Vietnam with the innocence of a Boy Scout. I consider myself lucky to have come back unscathed.
I think Mueller’s in a different category. He was looking to take on responsibility and be tested by fire. When he was, he passed with flying colors. I don’t see how people can so casually disrespect that for the sake of political expediency, but I’ve certainly seen it before, with both Kerry and McCain. It really shocked me when it came from other veterans. It seemed like a betrayal.
If Adolf Hitler appeared and stated he had proof Trump colluded with the Russians, liberals would cheer him as “honorable” and “trustworthy” and he would be the darling of all the liberal talk shows and “news” programs without being required to show what “proof” he had.
#42—WELL SAID
#43 Utterly stupid
Typical of the discourse here.
@Deplorable Me: With the left celebrating Lenin’s birthday I think your point is spot on. They love Songbird who needed a Presidential pardon, from a President that they dont like. Ignore what Kerrys fellow servicemen say about him, http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.1344/soldiers-who-were-with-john-kerry-in-vietnam-he-s-a-traitor.html Boy oh boy that Vet card sure covers up a lot of filth.
@kitt: I got a good laugh from the article you posted. Compare the writing, to the one posted by Greg. What do you think?
Songbird??
Why are you so anti military Kitt?
It’s Corps not Core and you know nothing about it’s honor.
@Richard Wheeler: Anti military? Dad Navy WW2, 2 Brothers joined not drafted VN one AF one Army, Son in Law Marine refused to re-up for Obama as he felt he should be able to shoot back. Nephew AF, current 2 Grand Nephews Army, Marines. No not anti military why was Kerry?
Mueller like Ryan lost something in Washington, must be something in the water mix with a little power and end up a lying prick.
Yes Songbird McCain had to be pardoned by Nixon, no doubt a favor to his father and grand dad. Then he got some of that water http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/mccain-and-the-pow-cover-up/
My article actually shows on film what Kerry said. Enjoy that. Busted on corps spelling…
My guess is Kitt and Burriss don’t have the guts or stomach to read Greg’s post about Mueller and The Corps to it’s conclusion.
Semper Fi
Speaking of honor Kitt—you’ll retract your lie that Nixon pardoned Mac Wasn’t needed wasn’t offered. Mac a hero SONG BIRD typical right wing BS.
@Richard Wheeler: I read it Richie, he did 1 less tour than my brother then jumped a desk became an attorney and a government climber. You make many ASSumptions.
If Kim doesnt give up his Nukes might be because of what happened to Libya, less than 8 years he was offed. Did you have the guts to read the article about McCains treatment of those left behind, and their hopeful families?
@Richard Wheeler: The pardon was not a lie, deny Nixon gave a blanket pardon to all POWs, it was McCains confession that was broadcast, you know cause torture doesnt work. I could have named any POW and it would have been the truth. Learn your history and you too can get under liberals skin.
https://powderedwigsociety.com/the-real-john-mccain-20012/