Trump Strategy Vindicated? North Korea Asks for Talks and Trump Accepts
After a decades-long standoff on the Korean Peninsula, the Trump administration has just pulled off a diplomatic coup.
A top official from South Korea delivered the stunning message at the White House Thursday night: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is promising to stop his nuclear missile tests and wants to meet with President Trump.
South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-Yong said his dictatorial northern neighbor "expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible."
The president accepted, tweeting, "great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. meeting being planned!'
"President Trump has said for some time that he was open to talks, and he would willingly meet with Kim Jong Un when conditions were right," US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.
North Korea even said US troops can continue joint military exercises with the South, something that would have been unheard of in the past.
The surprise invitation came after months of threats and insults between Trump and Kim that had some in the world on edge.
In August last year Trump warned, "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States, they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
While Kim ramped up his missile tests, the president responded by calling him "Little Rocket Man."
The mainstream media and the president's critics portrayed Trump as reckless and dangerous in his handling of Kim.
Now, the two clashing leaders could be meeting by May.
Robert Kelly, an expert on North Korea at Pusan National University, said, "Just a couple of months ago we were talking about air strikes and nuclear war and things like that and then all of a sudden you know, whoosh, within two months we are talking about some kind of final deal on the peninsula. So it does look like the president's approach or sort of pressure and talk that the Chinese have worked."
"It's a major positive development that is clearly moving in the right direction," said Jack Keane, retired four-star general and former vice chief of staff of the US Army. "Now, (North Korea) could be lying through their teeth like they've been in the past, then getting into discussions with them, they move in a different direction, that certainly can be the case."
But it seems to be a possible sign that, after decades of North Korean lying and cheating on its nuclear program in order to get money and aid from the West, Trump's tough sanctions finally worked.
Secretary of State Tillerson says it will take "weeks" to arrange the timing of Trump's meeting with Kim, and he said for now the meeting will simply be "talks" and not negotiations.
