Trump hints at new approach to North Korea’s nuclear programme

United States President Donald Trump intends to shift his focus to North Korea’s nuclear programme now that Washington has reached an agreement with Iran, South Korea’s president has said.

Lee Jae Myung said in a news conference that Trump told him on Friday at a G7 dinner that “the time had come to pay attention to the North Korea issue,” a comment that could signal renewed US focus on Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities.

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Lee also told Trump that sanctions against North Korea were “ineffective”, pointing to deepening military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

“Even a small amount of assistance from Russia is of great help to North Korea,” Lee said.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, and are separated by a Demilitarized Zone through which the border runs. North Korea announced its first nuclear test in 2006 and is believed to have dozens of nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang’s foreign outreach

Kim has recently sought to enhance his standing with his allies, sending troops and munitions to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine.

He also recently hosted China’s President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang, soon after Xi had held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Neither Pyongyang’s nor Beijing’s official statements mentioned the issue of North Korean denuclearisation – an outcome experts interpreted as tacit acceptance from China.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump, in Hanoi, collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

Kim has pledged to expand North Korea’s nuclear capabilities as he unveiled a new facility for developing nuclear bomb fuels.

Trump met Kim three times during his first term – once declaring they were “in love” – as he pushed to hammer out a long-coveted deal on denuclearisation. But no tangible progress has been made.

Trump stepped up his courtship of Kim during a tour of Asia last year, saying he was “100 percent” open to a meeting. The offer has gone unanswered.

The US president even bucked decades of US policy by stating North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power”.

On Sunday, Trump posted an uncaptioned photo of himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un taken at a meeting in Singapore in 2018.