Obama administration agreed to drop de-nuclearization requirement for North Korea
The Obama administration secretly dropped a requirement that North Korea reduce its nuclear weapons stash before pursuing peace talks, just days before the country conducted its latest nuclear bomb test, according to a report Sunday.
Federal officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration instead agreed that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program could simply be part of the discussions, in an effort to formally end the Korean War 63 years after the war stopped with an armistice.
But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s administration rejected those conditions. Just days later, on Jan. 6, the communist country conducted a nuclear test, the paper reported.
The Obama administration had signaled to Kim that it was willing to negotiate a deal with him that is similar to the agreement with Iran last year, where that country agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international sanctions being lifted.
In a speech last October, President Obama cited Iran and North Korea as countries with a history of antagonism against the United States. Obama said Iran, unlike North Korea, has shown a willingness to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has long insisted that North Korea denuclearizing must be a central part of peace talks, as Kim has intensified his demands for a treaty to end the war ever since taking power in 2011. After the country’s latest nuclear test, Congress passed a bill tightening economic sanctions against Kim’s regime. President Obama signed the the measure earlier this month.
