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Tag: Donald Trump

  • Britain supports S/African land reform – PM May

    Britain supports South Africa’s land reform program provided it is carried out legally, Prime Minister Theresa May said in Cape Town on Tuesday, adding that she would discuss the issue with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

    “The UK has for some time now supported land reform. Land reform that is legal, that is transparent, that is generated through a democratic process,” May told newsmen.

    “It’s an issue that I raised and discussed with President Ramaphosa when he was in London earlier this year.

    “I’ll be talking about it with him later today.”

    NAN reports that on Aug. 22, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study South African “land and farm seizures” and “killing of farmers”, prompting Pretoria to accuse Trump of stoking racial divisions.

    Trump’s comments have inflamed an already high-octane debate over land in South Africa, a country that remains deeply racially divided and unequal nearly a quarter of a century after Nelson Mandela swept to power at the end of apartheid.

    “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers,” Trump said on Twitter.

    South Africa’s foreign ministry will seek clarification of Trump’s comments from the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokeswoman said, adding that Trump was “misinformed”.

    Read Also: UK PM May for Abuja, Lagos tomorrow

    “South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past,” a tweet from South Africa’s official government account said in response to Trump’s comments.

    South Africa’s communications minister said Trump’s tweet would not affect relations between South Africa and the United States.

    “The tweet has not determined our approach to the United States on our current relationship and future relationship,” Nomvula Mokonyane said after a cabinet meeting.
    The U.S. State Department was not immediately available for comment on Trump’s tweet.

    Ramaphosa announced on Aug. 1 that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) plans to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as whites still own most of South Africa’s land.

    Ramaphosa has said any land reform will be conducted without an impact on economic growth or food security.

    No land has been “seized” since the reform plans were announced, the ANC says.

    Trump’s tweet appeared to be a response to a Fox News report on Wednesday that focused on South Africa’s land issue and murders of white farmers.

    Violent crime is a serious problem across South Africa and 47 farmers were killed in 2017, according to statistics from AgriSA, an association of agricultural associations.

    However, farm murders are at a 20-year low.

    Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC has followed a “willing-seller, willing-buyer” model under which the government buys white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

    Progress has been slow and most South Africans believe something has to be done to accelerate change, providing it does not hurt the economy or stoke unrest.

    “Reforming the land distribution and ownership will be good for South Africa,” said political analyst Nic Borain.
    “That there will be instability and worries about property rights is inevitable, but we don’t expect that the government will act in a way that radically destabilises investor security.”

    Trump’s tweet came days after it was announced that his wife, Melania, would travel to Africa in October for her first major solo international trip as first lady.

    In January, South Africa protested to the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria about reported remarks by Trump that some immigrants from Africa and Haiti came from “shithole” countries.

    South Africa’s foreign ministry called the remarks, which sources said Trump made during a meeting on immigration legislation, “crude and offensive” and said Trump’s subsequent denial was not categorical.

    AfriForum, an organization that mostly represents white South Africans who have described land expropriation as “catastrophic”, traveled to the U.S. earlier this year to lobby the Senate and other officials.

  • As Donald Trump unravels

    There was always something unsettling, repellent even, about Donald Trump.

    The liberal activist and film-maker Michael Moore has called him “a wretched, ignorant, part-time clown and full-time sociopath.”  Mitt Romney, the GOP 2102 presidential candidate described him as “a fraud and a “phony” who is “playing the American public for suckers.”  Trump lacks the temperament and judgment to be president, Romney said, adding:  “Dishonesty is his hallmark.”

    Trump as president-elect would later play Romney for sucker when, for his own private amusement and with Romney’s enthusiastic connivance, he carried on for several weeks the pretence that he was seriously considering Romney for appointment of Secretary of State. Trump even made sure that Romney’s wife and daughter were on hand to witness his humiliation.

    Why Romney would want to serve in any capacity whatsoever in the Administration of a president he had rightly excoriated in the most abhorrent terms says at least as much about Romney as it says of Trump.  But I digress.

    Trump had framed bigotry, xenophobia, demagoguery and misogyny and vulgar name-calling as nothing more than a rejection of the political correctness that was choking American society. He had for 18 years run a bogus university awarding fake diplomas upon payment of fees that it would courteous to call unconscionable.  He had waltzed unscratched through a trail of bankruptcies even as his business partners and shareholders faced certain ruin.

    He regularly stiffed his workers.

    On his way to the nomination and The White House and subsequently, he broke virtually every rule in American political practice. He called the U. S. military “disaster.”  He derided Senator John McCain, the naval aviator who was shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War and held captive for five years, saying he preferred soldiers who were not captured.

    McCain, who died last weekend, declared that under no circumstance should Trump attend his burial.

    Against photographic evidence, Trump maintained that he had a much larger crowd at his Inauguration and the one that had filled Washington DC to  overflowing for President Barack Obama’s.

    He denigrated women, mocked the handicapped, and fanned the embers of racism and religious intolerance.  He declared the news media America’s public enemy.

    In his angry, embittered speech that passed as his acceptance of the nomination,  Trump situated America in a frightful dystopia of strife and violence, decay, and decline. Police officers were being killed in the line of duty while chasing down illegal aliens. Radical Islamists were overrunning the country.

    “I alone can fix it, “he said of the dystopia he had conjured up.

    Trump was going to build a wall across the border with Mexico, and Mexico was going to pay for it.  He was going to bar Muslims from some nine countries from entering the United States.  He was going to bring China to heel for cheating on trade rules and currency valuation.  No agreement, domestic or foreign, was sacrosanct.  If it could not be re-negotiated to meet his objections in every material, the United States would pull out.

    He has not shot anyone on New York’s Fifth Avenue yet, but he has been busy undoing decades of ameliorative work on the environment, education, trade, commerce, mining, pollution, and water and air quality.  He has undermined NATO and other alliances, humiliated his foreign hosts on their own turfs, unilaterally repudiated multilateral treaties, forcibly separated babies and children from their migrant parents and detained them in cages.

    He has made the world more dangerous.

    Trump is no respecter of law or morality or tradition.  He is a law unto himself, abusive, vindictive, vulgar, and given to lying uncontrollably.  He would not submit his tax returns for public scrutiny, claiming that they were being audited.  His lack of transparency led to widespread suspicion that he might have paid no income tax for 18 years and counting.

    The conventional wisdom, with which I allied myself, was that a person with such a tawdry political baggage and a threadbare résumé of public service to boot had no business seeking to be president of the United States, and that a critical mass of Americans who believe that decency and integrity and  trustworthiness matter in public life would see through the bluster, the bombast, the mendacity and the megalomania and send Trump back to the world of Reality TV for which his talents are best suited.

    Even the Trump Campaign was bracing itself for the worst, despite polls suggesting that the race had tightened almost to a statistical dead heat in the face of the controversy surrounding his opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server when she was secretary of state.

    Trump defeated Hilary Clinton in the Electoral College to win the presidential race, even while trailing her by more than three million votes in the popular poll.

    It was an upset for the ages.  Never in the history of public affairs had so many people — experts, pundits, and laity – been so perfectly wrong.

    These were the recollections that flashed across my mind this past week as Donald Trump’s tawdry past finally caught up with him and he went unravelling before a global audience.

    He had set out shortly after taking office not merely to undo everything President Obama had done, but to cast his immediate predecessor in the most damaging light.

    Obama, he claimed, had placed him under security surveillance and spied on an official of the Trump Campaign.  But the table soon turned on him. Allegations that Russian hackers operating at the behest of the Kremlin  had compromised his election swirled, raising questions about his legitimacy.  Opposition research by a former British spy which had gained no traction during the election campaign bobbed up with compelling salience.

    These and other developments led to the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate allegations of Russian meddling in the election.  That investigation spawned other lines of inquiry, which in turn spawned other lines of inquiry, all culminating in the perfect calendar of scandal in which the Trump White House is now inextricably enmeshed.

    Last week, Trump’s long-term counselor and fixer Michael Cohen in sworn testimony implicated him in criminal activity.  His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight of 18 charges of financial crime.  Only one dissenting juror from a pool of 12 stood between Manafort and conviction on the remaining financial fraud charges.

    Whereas some former presidents have been unscrupulous in certain areas—infidelity, lying, dirty tricks and financial misdeeds– Trump, said an influential commentator, is “the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual ever to be elected president.”  Others, remarking how he talks like one and acts like one, have likened Trump to a mob boss.

    Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel whom Trump has denigrated endlessly along with the Department of Justice and the CIA and the FBI in tweet after tweet, is yet to report on his findings on Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in 2016 U. S. presidential election.  But already, there is talk of impeachment in the air.

    Don’t even think about that, Trump has warned.  If he is impeached, the stock market would crash, and everyone would become poor, and his extraordinary brain that has wrought all the wonders America had witnessed since he took office would no longer be at the service of society.

    It may never come to impeachment. But Trump is going to find it well-nigh impossible to tweet  himself out of the mess in which his hubris and his unbridled sense of entitlement have landed him.

    Within months of taking office, and with almost no achievement under his belt except a stolen Supreme Court seat and hefty tax cuts for high-income income earners and the wealthy, Trump launched a campaign for a second term.

    The best he can now hope for is to serve out his current term, hobbled and much diminished.

    Whoever succeeds him has the daunting task of making America decent again.

  • 2019: Trump’s remarks can’t stop Buhari – BMO

    The Buhari Media Organisation ( BMO ) has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will not be distracted by the derogatory remarks credited to President Donald Trump of the United States of America, but will remain focused on his mandate to deliver on his promises to the Nigerian people.

    The group was reacting to a report by the Financial Times that the American President told his aides after a meeting with the Nigerian Leader in April that he never wanted to hold such a life less meeting again.

    While describing the comment as disrespectful, Chairman of the group, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Maduekwe  said in a statement whether it was indeed said or in fact unsaid, Buhari would in his character continue to remain focused on his mandate to deliver on his promises to the Nigerian people.

    The group said that “President Muhammadu Buhari is fit and capable to run for the 2019 elections and oversee the affairs of the country for four more years President Donald Trump’s hate speech notwithstanding.”

    They stressed that this was not the first time the US President was heard to make such derogatory remarks about World leaders, and thus President Buhari would not be distracted by such.

    They said: “We are aware that President Trump’s disrespect for World Leaders is not new; his comments on Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, calling him ‘meek and mild’; his reference to Germany’s Leader, Angela Merkel’s actions as ‘insane’, or his outlandish Tweet at the UK’s Theresa May, and more recently, the alleged remarks he made after meeting President Buhari.

    “It is indeed not the first time President Trump would be heard to lower the standards of respect for his colleagues on the world stage. We are not surprised, we know that this age-long character of the US President would not change anytime soon. But it is important that we put it on record that President Buhari remains fit and sprightly, even for the next decade.

    Read Also: BMO replies r-APC, counts Buhari’s achievements

    “We recall that during President Buhari’s visit to Trump in the White House, the US President commended the successes that the Buhari administration had recorded especially in the fight against insurgency and the war on corruption.

    “The US President was full of admiration for Nigeria’s President during the visit, thus such outlandish remarks as reported by the Financial Times are not just to be taken with a pinch of salt but are untrue in themselves.

    “President Buhari has continued to show fitness and capacity to run the country post-2019; it went further to highlight that though the President’s 800 metre walk, where he acknowledged the cheers of members of his constituency, was not intended at showboating, it was an unscripted reference point that further proves a fit and lively President.”

  • Iran tells EU to speed up efforts to save nuclear deal

    Iran on Monday urged the European Union (EU) to accelerate its efforts to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers that U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in May, as French oil group Total formally pulled out a major gas project.

    Efforts by the remaining signatories – EU members Britain, France and Germany plus China and Russia – to avoid its collapse are struggling as Washington has said any firms dealing with Teheran will be barred from doing business in the U.S.

    “Europeans and other signatories of the deal have been trying to save the deal … but the process has been slow.
    “It should be accelerated,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.

    “Iran relies mainly on its own capabilities to overcome America’s new sanctions,” he told a news conference broadcast on state TV.
    European states have been scrambling to ensure Iran gets enough economic benefits to persuade it to stay in the deal, which Trump said was “deeply flawed”.

    Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran in August, targeting its trade in gold and other precious metals, purchases of U.S. dollars and its car industry.

    The European powers, China and Russia say they will do more to encourage their businesses to remain engaged with Iran.
    But the threat of U.S. sanctions has prompted many major companies to pull out of Iran.
    Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said France’s Total has formally left a contract to develop Iran’s South Pars Gas project.

    “The process to replace (Total) with another company is underway,” he was quoted as saying by state TV.

    Carmakers PSA, Renault and Daimler are also among those to suspend or drop plans to invest in Iran along with Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom

    Working to maintain financial channels with Tehran and facilitate Iran’s oil exports, the EU has taken steps to counter the renewed U.S. sanctions, including forbidding EU citizens from complying with them or related court rulings.

    Washington has said Iran’s only chance of avoiding the sanctions would be to accept Trump’s offer to negotiate a tougher nuclear deal.

    Iranian officials have rejected the offer.

    The U. S. will impose tougher sanctions on Iran in November which will target Iran’s oil sale and banking sector.

    Iran’s rial currency has lost about half of its value since April because of a weak economy, financial difficulties at local banks and heavy demand for dollars among Iranians who fear the effects of sanctions.

    Under the 2015 deal, most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear programme.

  • Trump accuses China of targeting U.S. farmers, being ‘vicious’

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China of targeting American farmers in a “vicious” way and using them as leverage to get concessions on trade.

    “China is targeting our farmers, who they know I love & respect, as a way of getting me to continue allowing them to take advantage of the U.S. They are being vicious in what will be their failed attempt.

    “We were being nice – until now!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

    Farmers have been a particular target in the current clash over trade policy as other countries seek to retaliate for U.S. duties on Chinese goods as well as on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

    Read Also: Trump, Iran’s president trade words over nuclear deal

    The affected countries have in turn targeted U.S. agricultural products, including soybeans, dairy, meat, produce and liquor.

    The U. S. exported 138 billion dollars in agriculture products in 2017, including 21.5 billion dollars of soybeans, the most valuable export.

    China alone imported 12.3 billion dollars of U.S. soybeans last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    On Tuesday, the Trump administration said it will use a Great Depression-era program to pay up to 12 billion dollars to help U.S. farmers weather the growing trade war.

  • Trump says meeting with Putin ‘even better’ than NATO summit

     U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his meetings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki went better than the NATO Summit, but the “fake news” media is not reporting it correctly and instead is going crazy.

    “While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia.

    “Sadly, it is not being reported that way the fake news is going crazy!’’ Trump said via Twitter.

    Much of the focus from Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki on Monday has been on statements about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

    Read Also: 2018 Election: Putin submit documents to electoral commission

    Trump said at a joint news conference that he did not see any reason why Russia would be responsible for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election.

    Trump said Putin told him Russia did not interfere in the U.S. election.

    The U.S. Intelligence Community released a report in January 2017 in which it concluded that that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

    Russian officials, including Putin, have repeatedly denied the allegations, noting that no evidence has been revealed to back up the claims.

    Also, Russian officials have said the allegations have been made up as an excuse for a candidate’s election loss and to deflect public opinion from actual instances of election fraud, corruption as well as other issues.

    NAN

  • Japan’s Abe to cancel Iran trip over U.S. pressure on Tehran- Kyodo

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has given up on a plan to visit Iran this summer, local media said on Wednesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump has taken an increasingly tough line against Tehran.

    “The visit to Iran would have been the first by a Japanese leader in 40 years, forming part of Abe’s scheduled tour through the Middle East from July 11.

    “But Japan has told Iran Abe would not be able to visit its capital, Tehran, in spite of arrangements it had been making for talks with President Hassan Rouhani,’’ the agency added, citing government sources.

    However, Motosada Matano, a spokesman for the Japanese prime minister’s office, told newsmen nothing had been decided about Abe’s overseas travel plans.

    Read Also: Japan’s PM Abe meets Trump, says confident can build trust

    The decision not to visit Iran was made in light of Trump’s push to isolate Tehran and choke off its oil exports, after he pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Iran nuclear pact in May.

    The U.S. has urged Japan and its other allies to stop buying Iranian crude oil entirely by Nov. 4.

    “Japan has traditionally had stable ties with Iran, on which it relied for decades as a key source of oil.

    “That’s why it has told the Trump administration it cannot further cut or halt crude imports from the country, for fear of risks to its economy,’’ it added.

  • Putin-Trump summit to have limited impact on Russia-U.S. ties – Experts

    Experts on Friday said little could be expected from the Putin-Trump meeting, as the two sides are unlikely to end the state of “systemic confrontation” in the near future.

    Russia and the U.S. have confirmed their respective presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will hold a full-fledged summit in Finland’s capital Helsinki on July 16, widely seen as a signal of the two countries’ willingness to start mending their worsening relations.

    The long-delayed summit comes at a time when Russia-U.S. relations have deteriorated to a record level due to multiple disputes including alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and divergence in Syria and Ukraine.

    “We are now in a state of confrontation with the U. S.,” said Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    Suslov said that an unacceptable “pre-war situation” has developed in Russia-U.S. relations.

    Both sides realize the need to keep things more manageable and predictable, which in turn inspired the idea of resuming bilateral dialogue in order to prevent further deterioration of relations.

    Read Also: ‘Oil prices: Trump did not pressure us to increase production’

    The strengthening of Trump’s political position this year has made it possible for Trump to renew his friendship with Putin.

    However, experts warned that one should not be over-optimistic about the results of the summit or short-term prospects of Russia-U.S. relations.

    The main reason lies in the fact that the two sides have “fundamental disagreements” regarding the world order and their roles in it.

    The U. S. is trying to restore its global dominance while Russia stands for a more equitable multipolar world.

    “I think controlled confrontation is the maximum that can be achieved in Russian-U.S. relations in the next few years.

    “As the U.S. will try to maintain its hegemony and primacy with all its might, there can be no question of any constructive relationship in Russian-U.S. relations,” Suslov said.

    Experts said there are still ways in which the two countries could cooperate.

    Potential approaches include restoring diplomatic missions, promoting cultural, social and scientific ties, as well as establishing a new joint stability mechanism in the world.

    “Both Russia and the United States are in favor of a more flexible and modern approach to the issue of strategic stability … Here we can come to a common understanding,” Suslov said.

    NAN

  • Israel blames Palestinians for cancellation of Argentina friendly

    Israel on Wednesday blamed Palestinian pressure for Argentina’s cancellation of its World Cup  warmup against Israel, a match that had been set for contested Jerusalem.

    The Palestinians accused Israel of using the fixture and the participation of Barcelona ace Lionel Messi to underpin its disputed claim to Jerusalem, which U.S. President Donald Trump recognised in 2017 as Israel’s capital in a break from international consensus.

    The Israeli Embassy in Argentina confirmed the cancellation on Twitter, saying it was saddened by the news following the threats directed at the players.

    The embassy expressed its hope that the players would come to Israel soon.

    “The threats and provocations directed at Lionel Messi, which logically aroused the solidarity of his colleagues and fear of playing the friendly, are no strangers to the daily life of Israel’s civilian population whose sporting stars, to put it simply, have been on numerous occasions the targets of violence and attacks,” the embassy wrote.

    “The friendship between Argentina and Israel, which will soon celebrate its 70th anniversary, is not about a football match. The democratic country and plural state (composed of Jews, Muslims and Christians), will always eagerly await the chance to receive one of the stars of Argentine sport.”

    The match at Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium was to be Argentina’s last before they kick off their World Cup campaign in Russia on June 16.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Argentinian President Mauricio Macri on Tuesday night to ask him to persuade the team not to cancel their visit, but a diplomatic official said the chances of salvaging the fixture were very slim as Macri can’t force the players to come to Israel.

    Read Also: Israel Minister threatens to end Assad’s rule

    “Macri has some influence, but it’s their decision and they’re afraid to come in the current climate,” the official added. “Israel is still pressuring them to reverse the decision.”

    In a second conversation Tuesday night, Macri told Netanyahu he had no influence on the matter.

    Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev received updated from the game’s producer, Danny Ben Naim, on the efforts to reverse the Argentinean decision.

    The minister was informed that since Argentina had announced their arrival for a friendly with Israel, different terror organisation had started sending messages to the players and their family members with explicit threats, as well as images and videos of children’s bodies.

    Addressing claims that the Argentinean team refused to arrive because of the decision to move the game to Jerusalem, the sports minister said: “That’s nonsense which legitimizes terror and the BDS campaign.

    Unfortunately, we have trojan horses in the Knesset who supporting terror.”

    President Reuven Rivlin said in response to the cancellation, “This really is a sad morning for the fans, including some of my grandchildren, but there are values that are even bigger than Messi.

    “I’m very concerned in the politicisation concealed in the Argentinean move. Even in the most difficult times, we made every effort to leave considerations which were not pure sport out of the soccer fields, and it’s a shame the Argentine team failed to do it this time.”

    The visit of twice world champions Argentina has attracted huge interest among Israeli fans, mainly because of Barcelona great Lionel Messi’s planned participation.

    Palestinians celebrated the cancellation.

    In Gaza, people cheered and in Ramallah in the West Bank, the Palestinian Football Association issued a statement thanking Messi and his colleagues for cancelling the game.

    NAN

  • Summit with North Korea can still hold – Trump

    U.S. President Donald Trump said that the much anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un could still go ahead on June 12.

    Trump told reporters at the White House: “We’re going to see what happens. It could even be the 12th”, referring to the original date set for the meeting in Singapore.

    “We’re talking to them now. They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it. We’ll see what happens.”

    In a tweet later, the president welcomed North Korea’s latest statement on the talks as “very good news,” following Trump’s announcement on Thursday cancelling the meeting.

    Trump, also tweeted: “Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea. We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!”

    Trump had cancelled the planned summit with Kim, citing the “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a recent statement from North Korea.

    It came on a day that North Korea dismantled its nuclear bomb testing site, in the presence of some invited journalists

    Read Also: Summit with North Korea’s leader may be delayed – Trump

    Trump said in a letter to Kim released on Thursday by the White House that based on the statement, he felt it was “inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”

    The president said the North Koreans talk about their nuclear capabilities, “but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”

    In a statement released by North Korean media on Thursday, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui had called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” for comparing North Korea – a “nuclear weapons state” – to Libya, where Gaddafi gave up his unfinished nuclear development programme, only to be later killed by NATO-backed fighters.

    “It is to be underlined, however, that in order not to follow in Libya’s footstep, we paid a heavy price to build up our powerful and reliable strength that can defend ourselves and safeguard peace and security in the Korean peninsula and the region.

    “We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,” Choe said.

    However, a top North Korean official issued a statement on Friday, expressing the regime’s “willingness” to sit down for a summit with the U.S. administration.

    “We express our willingness to sit down face-to-face with the U.S. and resolve issues anytime and in any format,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said.

    “Our commitment to doing our best for the sake of peace and stability for the world and the Korean Peninsula remains unchanged, and we are open-minded in giving time and opportunity to the U.S.,” he said.

    NAN