In what was perhaps the most surprising announcement to emerge from today's Trump-Kim summit, president Trump agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea in return for a commitment to denuclearisation from North Korea.

As we reported earlier, Trump said the war games were expensive and “very provocative”, and yet stopping them has been called a "major concession", something the US has previously rejected as non-negotiable on the grounds that the exercises are a key element of its military alliance with Seoul, and maintaining a deterrent against North Korea. In return, Trump said Kim had agreed in a joint statement to reassert “his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump have signed a four-point document that would lead to “major change,” they announced at a joint news conference after their first face-to-face meeting in Singapore.

The contents of the document were not immediately disclosed, but Trump said that he will be holding a press conference on the matter later in the day.

“We’ve developed a very special bond,” Trump said, sitting next to “chairman” Kim after what he called an “intensive time” together. He vowed to start the process “very, very quickly” without specifying what exactly is going to happen.

The statement came a few months after Kim had resumed nuclear testing in an intensive effort to establish a credible nuclear deterrent. In part that was because of the young Kim’s conviction that the United States believed it could “bully” his regime in the transition after Kim father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011, according to Wit’s North Korean interlocutors.

But those same North Korean officials also told Wit that the new buildup would be of limited duration – only until it became possible to improve relations with the United States. That explanation suggested that Kim was pursuing a military capability primarily to serve as an incentive for Washington to come to the negotiating table and as a set of bargaining chips to obtain what it really wanted – an end to the hostile policy toward the regime by the United States.

The historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended with the celebratory signing of a declaration that the United States and North Korea will “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

But the declaration, which echoes the vague language of an April joint statement by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, does not commit North Korea to a firm, verifiable process for giving up its nuclear weapons or the associated research-and-development effort.

Despite Trump telling reporters that his meeting with Kim went “better than anybody could have expected,” only one man truly had any reason to celebrate.

Acosta was admonished on Twitter for his childish behavior, and many are calling for his White House press credentials to be pulled.

One would compare Acosta’s actions to a Democratic operative, but one would imagine that even a staffer at the DNC would be respectful at such an extraordinary, historic moment.

US administrations don't negotiate. They demand, wanting other nations subservient to their interests.

US global political influence is waning, not growing. Yet its military strength is an ominous force to be reckoned with - armed with super-weapons, willing to do whatever it takes to enforce its will on other nations.

Bullying doesn't win friends and influence people, just the opposite. Carrots work much better than sticks.

Washington consistently reneges on promises. Rare exceptions prove the rule, why it can never be trusted - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un keenly mindful of what he's up against in dealing with Trump.

If North Korean leader Kim Jong Un manages detente in his summit with President Trump, it could be a prelude to opening one of the most closed economies in the world.

During his trip to Singapore, Kim has hinted he might be in favor of beginning that process. North Korea's state media reported on Tuesday that Kim was impressed with the city-state's economic development, and hopes he can learn from the country.

In waiting to find out if a nuclear war is fated, the entire world has been put at ease by the news that Dennis Rodman will be attending the North Korea summit.

If this news is not enough to fuel confidence about the meeting, the knowledge that the trip itself is being funded by the former NBA star’s marijuana cryptocurrency sponsors @potcoin will hopefully put observers at ease.

Progress may or may not be made in disarming nuclear North Korea at the summit, but the cryptocurrency may get a boost from the wild publicity as yet another celebrity lines to be the face of a digital token and lift it out of obscurity.

“Thanks to my loyal sponsors from @potcoin and my team at @Prince_Mrketing, I will be flying to Singapore for the historical Summit,” Rodman tweeted last week.

Those who support US President Donald Trump’s effort to denuclearize North Korea should stand behind his quest to halt a nuclear Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"Dangerous regimes should denuclearize,” Netanyahu told the AJC Global Forum, whose members gathered in Jerusalem before Tuesday's meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

While the North Korean leadership prepares for Kim Jong-un’s historic meeting with US President Trump, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho finds the time to lash out at the Israeli prime minister on Twitter following his offer to help Iran with water tech; Also on Twitter, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei refers to Netanyahu as ‘the children-killer PM of the Zionist regime.’

President Donald Trump told Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials to tone down the rhetoric in the weeks before his historic summit with North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, it was revealed on Sunday.

Trump had led the tough talk against Kim earlier in his administration, calling him a 'rocket man' in his September speech to the United Nations.

But as then-CIA director Mike Pompeo prepared to go to North Korea over Easter weekend, the president changed his tune, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The president surprised top advisers by urging restraint, officials told the newspaper.

National Security Adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence were told to tone down their comments.

'Mike, you got it?' Trump told the vice president, a person in the room told the Journal. 'No f***ing crazy talk from anybody in the administration.'

The White House escalated the war of words against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday as top advisers to President Donald Trump said there was a 'special place in hell' for the traitor who 'stabbed us in the back' with a 'cheap' and 'sophomoric' stunt designed to make Trump look weak ahead of his meeting with North Korean President Kim Jung-Un.

'He really kind of stabbed us in the back. He really, actually, you know: he did a great disservice to the whole G-7. He betrayed,' White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday morning.

'He went rogue.'

The White House economic adviser used the interview to take shot after shot at Trudeau, calling him 'polarizing,' sophomoric,' and performing a 'political stunt.'

One of Donald Trump’s strategies for enticing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into sweeping talks about scrapping his country’s nuclear arsenal has been to dangle an apparently unlikely promise of future prosperity. Kim’s poverty-stricken country, Trump said at a White House meeting last month, could end up “very rich.” Is this just more Trumpian hyperbole, or is the president on to something?

The Korean Peninsula offers about as close to a natural experiment for answering that question as you can get. One half of the peninsula took an authoritarian state-capitalist path and is now an advanced industrial democracy. The other opted for state socialism and is now poor and isolated. The conclusion: There’s nothing to stop North Korea — sharing similar geography and human capital — from following in the footsteps of South Korea and other countries in the region.

Before jetting off for Singapore on Saturday, President Trump said he has a “clear objective” for his June 12 meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un but is prepared to hit the ground running. “It’s going to be something that will always be spur of the moment,” he said about any potential agreements with Kim. “You don’t know. This has not been done before at this level.” At the top of the agenda for the meeting is Washington’s demands that Pyongyang surrender its nuclear weapons program, though Trump said he believes the summit will at the very least help build a “relationship” between the two countries. Whether or not it will yield a more significant agreement is something he said he’ll know “within the first minute.” “Just my touch, my feel. That’s what I do. And if I think it won’t happen, I’m not going to waste my time.

North Korean officials have toured China to discuss economic development. Speculators are snapping up property along their common border. And South Korea is studying ways to boost engagement with its isolated neighbor to the north.

While President Donald Trump seems intent to make a deal with North Korea seemingly at any cost, the CIA has apparently deployed one of its most hawkish North Korea hands to be at the president's side during the summit, allowing the intelligence community to rein in any of the president's excesses as it angles for a historic diplomatic achievement.

In a piece published late Wednesday, Bloomberg profiles Andrew Kim, a CIA officer who first came to prominence when he was photographed sitting alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during Pompeo's first meeting with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

President Trump has set the bar of success so high for his forthcoming meeting with Kim Jong-un, it is difficult to see how it could possibly be met.

As the New York Times noted last month, “To meet his own definition of success, Mr. Trump will have to persuade Mr. Kim to accept ‘complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization’ of North Korea — something that Mr. Kim has shown no willingness to accept in the past, and few believe he will accede to in the future.”

For more than 40 years, Takuya Yokota has longed for news of his sister Megumi, who disappeared from a seaside town in northern Japan in 1977, one of at least a dozen Japanese citizens snatched by North Korean agents.

The need for answers is a message Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be taking to Donald Trump on Thursday when the two meet in Washington, days before the US President's talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Pyongyang has admitted to kidnapping Megumi Yokota, but said she died decades ago. Her family disputes this account and believes she is still alive in North Korea.

Abe has pushed the topic of Japanese abductions with the US President before, both Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have previously promised to address the issue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised US President Donald Trump for agreeing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about the possibility of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. After calling Trump "courageous and mature", Putin added that he's expecting a "positive outcome" from the June 12 summit, which is set to take place in Singapore.

"I still hope that this meeting – a very courageous and mature decision U.S. President Donald Trump has made, to have direct contacts with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – will take place, and we all expect a positive outcome," Putin said in an interview with China Media Group ahead of a planned summit in Shanghai later this week.

Putin and Trump are said to be planning a summit, and the two leaders have met twice in person since Trump took office.

NBA star turned Kim Jong Un soulmate Dennis Rodman will be in Singapore during President Trump’s summit with the North Korean dictator next week, The Post has learned.

“The Worm” will arrive in the country a day before the June 12 sitdown — and sources said he could even play some sort of role in the negotiations.

“No matter what you might think about his presence. One thing’s for sure the ratings will be huge,” a source said. “A lot of times in situations that involve complex diplomacy countries like to identify ambassadors of goodwill and whether you agree with it or not Dennis Rodman fits the bill.”

Bolton’s also the guy who infuriated the NorKs by talking about the “Libyan model” of denuclearization a few weeks ago on American television. That led to a series of belligerent statements from Pyongyang, which in turn led to Trump pulling out of the summit. Remember who encouraged him to do that, per NBC?

Washington's newly toned-down approach on Pyongyang has led many to ask whether President Donald Trump will still press Kim Jong Un at next week's summit.

Last week, the U.S. president curbed expectations for immediate denuclearization in a major shift from his previous demands.

A lengthy disarmament process, however, poses several risks, experts warned.

A letter from a number of ranking Senate Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is setting out a series of demands for any denuclearization deal with North Korea. The letter suggests they intend to undermine any sort of deal made in the Trump-Kim summit next week.

The letter demands any denuclearization deal be complete and “permanent,” and threatens legislation to prevent any sanctions relief without their approval. They also demand that Trump force China to play a role in enforcing the deal.

This closely mirrors the way Congressional Republicans undermined the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, as reached by President Obama. This ultimately led to the US withdrawing from the deal just a couple of years into it.

Suggesting that some North Korean government hardliners remain opposed to denuclearization, and may even have had political overhaul ambitions in Kim's absence in one week, Yonhap and Reuters reported Monday morning that Kim Jong Un has removed the top three military officials from their posts ahead of the historic June 12 summit with Trump in Singapore.

While there has been no specific reason cited for the "replacement", it is possible that Kim was worried about the military - which holds an immense amount of power in North Korean society - staging a coup in his absence one week from today.

It was billed as the pre-summit summit. A gathering of regional defense chiefs in the very same city where the two leaders of the United States and North Korea are due to meet in a mere nine days' time.

But rather than offering a preview of next week's main event, issues surrounding North Korea took a backseat during this year's Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's foremost security forum.
Instead, it was the rise of China that proved to be the most important and repeatedly talked about subject among delegates in Singapore.

North Korea will not get any sanctions relief until it has demonstrated "verifiable and irreversible" steps to denuclearization, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said Sunday.

US military presence in South Korea will not come up at the June 12 summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Defense Secretary James Mattis said in Singapore.

Donald Trump hopes to choose from a quick and easy menu at next month’s Singapore summit with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

The US president wants instant results, primarily a headline-grabbing nuclear weapons deal in return for food aid, investment and other support.

If sanctions are lifted, the deal could even include the launch of an American hamburger franchise in Pyongyang, according to a CIA report.

But rival countries wanting to get in on the action and hoping to make strategic and business gains, are hustling to ensure the summit outcome suits them too – assuming the meeting goes ahead.

The competing interests of China, Russia, Japan, South Korea – and of Kim himself – may upset Trump’s hopes.

Kim Jong-un has complained of “US hegemonism” to Russia’s visiting foreign minister as one of his top lieutenants visited New York trying to ensure that a summit with President Donald Trump goes ahead.

The North Korean ruler told Sergey Lavrov that he hoped to boost cooperation with Russia, which has remained largely on the sidelines in recent months as Kim has reached out diplomatically to the United States, South Korea and China.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a senior North Korean official abruptly ended two days of talks Thursday with no immediate announcement of progress toward reinstating a potential summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump.

Just as it was reported that the summit between the United States and North Korea was back on and that Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea was on his way to New York to meet with officials in preparation for the June 12 summit, the CIA leaked an intelligence assessment concluding that “North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon.” The timing of this leak is striking, as it seems to be an effort to undermine negotiations between the two nations and comes just days after ranking members of the Democratic Party and Republican hardliners attacked President Donald Trump over his efforts to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dined with Kim Jong Un's right-hand man on Wednesday night in an effort to salvage President Donald Trump's summit with North Korea.

Filet mignon was on the menu after Kim Yong Chol jetted into to New York earlier in the day. He is the highest-ranking official to visit the U.S. from Pyongyang since October 2000, when President Bill Clinton was considering normalizing relations with North Korea. Their working dinner at a government residence in a private midtown Manhattan building lasted about 90 minutes.

Pompeo, who hails from Kansas, was later asked what they ate. "American beef," he replied.

Kim Yong Chol is a former intelligence chief and vice chairman of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party.

The ultimate goal of Korean denuclearization cannot be reached as long as sanctions against Pyongyang are in place, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following talks with his North Korean counterpart.

Amid ongoing negotiations on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Lavrov flew to Pyongyang on Thursday to hold talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho.

“In regards to sanctions, it is absolutely obvious that starting the whole conversation about the solution of the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, we proceed from the fact that it cannot be complete until the sanctions are abolished,” Lavrov said following the talks.

Stressing that it is “impossible” to ensure denuclearization in one move, the Russian foreign minister urged North Korean and US diplomats to use the “art of diplomacy” to achieve the desired outcome step by step.

According to a report by NBC News, a CIA analysis from last week concludes that North Korea won't be giving up their nuclear weapons anytime soon, but they might be willing to put a Western hamburger franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials who illegally leaked details of the alleged internal report.

In May of last year, the DPRK accused both the CIA (headed by Mike Pompeo) and the ROK’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) of “a failed plot to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-un with a biochemical bomb at a military parade in Pyongyang.”

Neither the CIA nor the White House responded to these accusations.

While press reports acknowledged the CIA’s “long history” of political assassinations, the DPRK’s accusations were casually dismissed.

According to The Guardian (March 5, 2017)

“The CIA has a long history of helping to kill leaders around the world. US intelligence agency has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders, but was forced to cut back after a Senate investigation in the 1970s”

According to WaPo sources, former US ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim, crossed into North Korea on Sunday to hold talks with Pyongyang’s Vice-Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui. The US envoy is accompanied by Allison Hooker, the Korea specialist on the National Security Council and an undisclosed official from the Defense Department, the source said.

The meetings between US and N.Korean officials are expected to continue on Monday and Tuesday with the aim of organizing “any summit” between Trump and Kim on the North Korean nuclear program. Sung Kim and Choe reportedly know each other well as they were both involved in nuclear talks in previous years.

* * *

One day after Saturday's "surprise" second summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday that his Northern counterpart Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his commitment to “complete” denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and to a planned meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The history of the US Central Intelligence Agency is replete with numerous examples of political assassinations, not only in the US, but also of leaders of countries Washington disagrees with. So today, the CIA has actively begun developing various methods for the deliberate elimination of the US’s newest political opponent, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, involving not only special forces in this task, but also the special services of countries that cooperate closely with the CIA.

The North issued a statement in short order emphasizing a willingness to “sit down with the United States any time, in any format, to resolve the problems.” Yet it’s getting harder to see how Trump and Kim can make the mutual accommodations necessary for diplomacy to succeed. In fact, beneath the surface, the current situation resembles the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which historical research continues to show was much more dangerous than anyone knew at the time. If the Trump-Kim summit stays canceled, and saber-rattling returns as the dominant mode of communication, the odds of military crisis will rise dramatically. And, as the Cuba experience shows, once begun, a military crisis involving nuclear weapons will almost inevitably bring lots of surprises—ones that could make the shocking twists and turns of the summit buildup look pedestrian by comparison.

South Korean analysts and media have pinpointed Allison Hooker, a National Security Council official who specializes in Korean affairs as a potential key player in establishing foundations for future US-North Korea talks.

Hooker, a former East Asia and Pacific affairs analyst with the US State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, is part of the delegation led by Trump that arrived in South Korea on Friday for the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympics.

Washington, however, initially left her name off the delegation list when relevant announcements were made. It is unknown whether her visit was meant to be classified or just that she was a last minute addition.

US officials have arrived in North Korea to start preparations for still-unconfirmed talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, the Washington Post reported after conflicting signals from the US president on the meeting’s fate.

Former US ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim, crossed into North Korea on Sunday to hold talks with Pyongyang’s Vice-Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui, a source familiar with the matter told the paper.

The US envoy is accompanied by Allison Hooker, the Korea specialist on the National Security Council and an undisclosed official from the Defense Department, the source said.

This is where hubris and arrogance lead. By indefinitely postponing his summit with Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, in a fit of petulance and political cowardice, Donald Trump has squandered a golden opportunity for peace on the Korean peninsula, plunged the Asia-Pacific region into a period of renewed uncertainty, blindsided America’s allies, and resurrected the dread prospect of nuclear war.

All may not yet be lost. But that’s no thanks to Trump. The author of The Art of the Deal thought he alone could pull off what had eluded successive presidents in Washington. He prematurely hailed Kim’s decision to free three US citizens as a major breakthrough. He basked in utterly ludicrous talk, notably from Boris Johnson, of a Nobel peace prize. When Kim made clear “denuclearisation” did not mean what Trump thought it meant, he meekly offered more concessions.

U.S. threats to crush Iran and North Korea may yet work, but as of now neither Tehran nor Pyongyang appears to be intimidated.

Repeated references by NSC adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence to the "Libya model" for denuclearization of North Korea just helped sink the Singapore summit of President Trump and Kim Jong Un. To North Korea, the Libya model means the overthrow and murder of Libya strongman Col. Gadhafi, after he surrendered his WMD.

The United States has been reportedly mulling sanctions against Pyongyang as part of its maximum pressure campaign despite preparations for the June 12 summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un.

The White House is considering dozens of new sanctions against North Korea, which may go into effect early next week, US-based media reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the US National Security Council met on Thursday to discuss potential sanctions against Pyongyang, military action and other ways forward.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump canceled the June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after Pyongyang reacted angrily to Washington's warning that the "military option" for the North Korean problem was still on the table.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that conversations are underway right now with North Korea and a canceled summit with Kim Jong-un could go ahead on "the 12th," an apparent reference to June 12, the previously scheduled date of the meeting.

"We're going to see what happens. We're talking to them right now. It could even be the 12th… We want to do it," Trump told reporters.

Earlier in the day, the US president welcomed what he called warm and productive statements from North Korea, calling the recent remarks made by the country's leader Kim Jong-un "very good news."

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. military stands "ready if necessary" following his cancellation of a planned summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, ramping up already tense rhetoric exchanged between Washington and Pyongyang.

The president, throwing aside his conciliatory rhetoric, called the meeting's cancellation a "great setback for the world." Touting a "greatly enhanced" American military and the power of U.S. allies, Trump warned Kim against taking "foolish or reckless" action.

"I have spoken to South Korea and Japan and they are not only ready should foolish or reckless acts be taken by North Korea, but they are willing to shoulder much of the cost of any financial burden — any of the costs associated by the United States in operations, if such an unfortunate situation is forced upon us," he said during an event at which he signed a bill rolling back bank regulations.

Until now the fate of the long-awaited summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un had been unknown. While Washington had demanded that the DPRK start the process of denuclearization, Pyongyang stressed that it would negotiate with Trump only if he was seeking to improve bilateral relations.

"I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting," Trump said, referring to a meeting with Kim Jong-un slated for June 12. "Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place," read Trump's letter to Kim Jong-un, released by the White House.

The US president has blamed the cancellation on North Korea's "tremendous anger and open hostility" expressed in Kim's latest statement.

President Trump cancels his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month.

Trump accuses North Korea of "tremendous anger and open hostility."
The meeting, which would have marked the first face-to-face encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, was set for June 12.
"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used," Trump writes.

President Trump announced the cancellation of his scheduled June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a letter released this morning by the White House.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States is prepared to walk away from negotiations with North Korea if upcoming talks on its nuclear weapons program head in the wrong direction.

"The American people are counting on us to get this right.

Mike Pompeo’s bellicose rhetoric against Tehran leaves no doubt that Washington has embraced the status of international renegade.
Pompeo’s speech, delivered in his capacity as secretary of state, evinced a blatant disregard for the integrity of international treaties and respect for international law. It also ensures that the last vestiges of credibility enjoyed by the US has now been shredded in the eyes of a world grown weary – weary of a Trump administration which, in its caprice and continual threats, is more redolent of a New York mafia crime family than a respectable and responsible government.

North Korea will be dismantling its Punggye-ri nuclear site this week after Kim Jong-un announced the nation would take steps towards denuclearisation.

However nuclear scientists and North Korea experts fear vital evidence of Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions will be destroyed.

North Korea has invited a handful of media representatives to witness the dismantling of the Punggye-ri site but not technical experts despite calls from the US for "a permanent and irreversible closure that can be inspected and fully accounted for".

Bruce Bechtol, an expert on North Korea, has likened the destruction of the nuclear test site to trampling on a murder scene.

Mr Bechtol, a professor of political science at Angelo State University, said: “It's kind of like a murder scene where they let people like you and me trample around in it, it's the same concept.

State media unleashed three strongly worded commentaries slamming Seoul and Washington for the maneuvers and demanding Seoul take action against defectors it claimed were sending anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border.

The official media had until recently taken a relatively subdued tone amid the North's diplomatic overtures to its neighbors, including a summit with South Korea's president last month and plans for leader Kim Jong Un to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12.

That first changed last week, when it lashed out against the maneuvers, cut high-level contacts with Seoul and threatened to "reconsider" the Trump summit.

Former Jimmy Carter is no fan of Republicans and supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But now Carter has announced something extraordinary. If peace can be achieved between North and South Korea, Carter is endorsing the idea of the Nobel prize committee honoring President Donald J. Trump for his historic efforts! Carter himself is a Nobel laureate.

US Vice President Mike Pence has said that President Donald Trump is still considering canceling the scheduled summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and that the military option has never been off the table.

The Trump administration will not fall for the same trap with North Korea as its predecessors did, Pence said, hinting that the much-hyped summit between the US and North Korean leaders might be off the table if Trump feels he is being "played."

While President Trump’s reaction to “hiccups” in diplomacy ahead of the North Korea summit is to threaten Kim, South Korean officials say they see the real problem as John Bolton. MP Chung Dong-young referred to Bolton as one of “several land mines” that are in the way of the summit.

South Korea’s current pro-diplomacy government has a lot of familiar faces to their last such government, which was in power when Bolton was a hawkish ambassador. South Korean analysts saw Bolton’s hawkish stance on North Korea before as a problem, and say he hasn’t changed.

When Bolton’s talk of the “Libya model” in North Korea immediately provoked fury from the North Korean government, US officials didn’t seem to understand why. South Korean officials say the “Libya model” was an obvious red light to North Korea.

Indeed, it’s a blunder to the point where officials suggest that Bolton is deliberately interfering in the peace process, and trying to botch it in doing so.

A small group of foreign journalists arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to cover the dismantling of the country’s nuclear test site later this week, but without South Korean media initially also scheduled to participate.

The summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “may or may not happen” as scheduled, depending on Kim’s actions in the coming days, Trump said in a meeting with the South Korean president.

Trump and Moon met at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the summit, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. Both remained optimistic about the meeting, though Trump said he was “not happy” about the recent changes in North Korean attitude.

The tone from Pyongyang changed after Kim’s second meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump told reporters prior to the meeting, according to Reuters. He called Xi a “world class poker player” who he would like to think is committed to peace in the Korean peninsula.

A planned training exercise involving U.S. B-52 bombers and South Korean planes was scrapped earlier this week after the South Korean government expressed concerns that it could generate tensions before a planned summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to U.S. officials.

After illegally abrogating the signature of the United States on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, Donald Trump is not only prepared to offer a nuclear deal to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but had his Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, sweeten the prospect with a promise of billions of dollars of investments in North Korea’s infrastructure. Meanwhile, Trump is prepared to institute secondary sanctions against any country, including the remaining JCPOA signatories, that continue to do business with Iran.

The United States has agreed to abandon its plans to fly two nuclear-armed B-52 bombers over the Korean peninsula after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened to cancel the upcoming summit with President Donald Trump, US media reported.

South Korea and Japan also agreed to a plan to avoid putting the summit at risk, CNN reported on Friday, citing US defense officials.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that US officials are still working with North Korean colleagues on the details of the June 12 summit in Singapore despite Kim’s threats.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday urged China on Monday to maintain a secure border with North Korea, pressing Beijing ahead of his anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month aimed at denuclearization.

North Korean officials explained in these private sessions that Kim had issued the new policy after concluding that his country needed more nuclear weapons to deter the United States. It wasn’t just that the North Koreans were concerned about escalating tensions in late 2012 and early 2013, as well as continuing flights of nuclear-capable U.S. bombers over the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans also felt Washington and Seoul thought they could bully the North during the leadership transition that had begun with the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011. One North Korean official I spoke to then said “nuclear” equaled “survival.”

To come this far and to back out would be a huge step backwards.

President Trump is reportedly considering dropping out of the much-celebrated peace summit with North Korea. After a number of missteps in the process, the President is consulting with allies on whether or not going forward is a good idea.

To persuade Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal, the U.S. president appears ready to guarantee Little Rocket Man’s survival. Part of the game: trying to wean Kim away from China.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he will shut down his nuclear test site sometime in May, South Korea officials said Sunday.

South Korean presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan said that Kim agreed to the plan during a meeting between the leader and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, National Public Radio reported.

Yoon also said that Kim will invite experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States into the country to ensure “transparency” about closing down the site, CNN reported.

Tokyo will dispatch a senior diplomat to Singapore to collect information on the planned summit next month between the United States and North Korea, Japanese government sources said.

Japan aims to use the momentum generated by their improving ties to help resolve the long-standing abduction issue.

The vexing issue involving Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s has prevented the two countries from formally establishing diplomatic ties.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks at an expanded meeting of the seventh Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, in Pyongyang on Friday. North Korea on Wednesday threatened to suspend the summit with the US if Washington continues to demand a unilateral abandonment of its nuclear arsenal.

The biggest obstacle Donald Trump is going to face in his upcoming negotiations with Kim Jong-un, is not Kim’s unwillingness to abandon his nuclear weapons program, but resistance from powerful elements in the foreign policy establishment who will do everything they can to scuttle the agreement. We’ve already seen an example of this just this week when US nuclear bombers were included in the US-Korea joint military drills that are currently underway in the south. The B-52?s were clearly added to the massive “Max Thunder” exercises to provoke the DPRK leadership, increase tensions, and convince Kim that it was pointless to trust Washington. The move was bitterly criticized in North Korea’s state media which summed up the situation like this:

It’s got to be either one of the stupidest acts that I can recall or a very wicked plan by Washington neocons to sabotage Korean peace talks.
How else to describe the decision by Big Brother USA and junior sidekick South Korea to stage major air force exercises on North Korea’s border. The prickly North Koreans had a fit, of course, as always when the US flexes its muscles on their borders. Continuing South and North Korean peace talks scheduled this week were cancelled by the furious North Koreans. The much ballyhooed Singapore summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is now threatened with cancellation or delay.
Who can blame the North Koreans for blowing their tops? As Trump administration mouthpieces were gabbing about peace and light, the US Air Force was getting ready to fly B-52 heavy bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters around North Korea’s borders and missile-armed subs lurked at sea.

The Trump Administration appears determine to respond to North Korea’s recent concerns about war games near their border ahead of the June 12 summit. It doesn’t seem that officials are entirely clear what North Korea wants to hear, however, so they’re trying pretty much everything.

President Trump in particular is throwing every combination of threats and incentives he can think of at North Korea, attempting to disavow the “Libya Model” talked of by John Bolton, while at the same time threatening to see Kim Jong-un end up dead like Libya’s Gadhafi if he doesn’t capitulate.

North Korea objects to the Libya Model primarily because of its consequences. Gadhafi agreed to give up his WMD equipment in 2003, in return for improved diplomatic ties. This never really panned out, however, and by 2011, NATO attacked Libya, helping rebels to ultimately capture and kill Gadhafi.

Donald Trump has warned Kim Jong-un that North Korea will be “decimated” if it does not agree a nuclear deal, and that Mr Kim himself will be treated in the same manner as slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In comments to reporters that initially appeared designed to reassure Mr Kim, amid reports of potential brinksmanship from North Korea, the US president said his safety would be reassured and that he would remain in control of his country, following any deal with Washington. Yet he then suggested if a deal was not forthcoming, the North Korean leader might be treated much more harshly.

“The Libyan model was a much different model. We decimated that country. We never said to Gaddafi, ‘Oh, we're going to give you protection’,” he said. “We went in and decimated him, and we did the same thing with Iraq.”

The United States will ruin the "regime" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if he keeps issuing threats to Washington, Senator Lindsay Graham said in a statement on Thursday.

"I’m here to tell North Korea that our president has drawn a red line," Graham wrote in a Twitter post. "If you keep threatening the American homeland with a nuclear weapon we’re going to destroy your regime."

Kim warned President Donald Trump on Tuesday that he could cancel a planned summit in Singapore due to ongoing US-South Korea military drills.

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has said military intervention may be necessary to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons if a deal cannot by reached with Kim Jong-un at next month’s planned summit.