Obama administration’s secret overture to North Korea

This statement included North Korea completely abandoning its nuclear programs, the normalization of relations between North Korea and the United States and the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“We carefully considered their proposal and made clear that denuclearization had to be part of any such discussion”, Kirby said in statement, emphasizing that Washington’s response to Pyongyang’s proposal “was consistent with our longstanding focus on denuclearization”.

The Wall Street Journal report said that the US had conditionally agreed to accept the North’s offer to hold peace treaty talks, just days before the North’s nuclear test, but Pyongyang rejected the counterproposal and went ahead with the January 6 test. The official stressed that any peace treaty should not be an issue between the US and the North, but should be led by South Korea.

The Associated Press says that tensions have significantly increased along the Demilitarized Zone(DMZ) since North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

“My top concern remains the potential for a North Korean provocation to start a cycle of action and counteraction which could quickly escalate”, General Curtis Scaparrotti told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

North Korean soldiers guard the truce village of Panmunjom at the…

“The US however has never wanted to settle the status of the divided Korean Peninsula as the stationing of US troops in South Korea is a prime component of US military force projection in the Asian Pacific region”.

Gardner has been leading congressional efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear proliferation and human rights abuses for almost a year. Would it target the United States? Australia, China, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan also are competing in the tournament that begins Monday, with two teams advancing to the Olympics.

“Rather than requiring progress on denuclearization before negotiations, it seems the administration agreed to the idea of peace talks but required denuclearization talks to be included”, Klingner said.

Those soldiers, airmen and Marines provide some deterrent to the North, a highly militarized country that maintains a standing army of 1.2 million active soldiers, 70% of whom are deployed within 100 miles of the border with South Korea, according to Klingner.

Both the US and South Korea hold annual military drills to prepare for a possible attack from North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guides military drills in an undated photo released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on February 21, 2016.