North Korea yesterday slammed US President Trump for “bluffing” and called him “an old man bereft of patience,” as Pyongyang ramps up pressure on Washington over stalled nuclear talks.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un engaged in mutual insults and threats of devastation in 2017, sending tensions soaring before a diplomatic rapprochement the following year.
Pyongyang has set Washington an end-of-year time limit to offer it new concessions in deadlocked nuclear negotiations, and has said it would adopt an unspecified “new way” if nothing acceptable is forthcoming.
STALLED TALKS
Denuclearization negotiations have been at a standstill since a summit in Hanoi broke up in February.
Trump has indicated that the option of military action was still on the table while downplaying Pyongyang’s actions, saying the North’s leader would not want to “interfere” with the upcoming US presidential elections.
“I’d be surprised if North Korea acted hostilely,” Trump said on Saturday.
However, Kim Yong-chol, who served as North Korea’s counterpart to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo until the collapse of the Hanoi meeting, slammed Trump’s “odd words and expression,” referring to him as a “heedless and erratic old man.”
“Our action is for his surprise. So, if he does not get astonished, we will be irritated,” Kim Yong-chol, now the chairman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
“This naturally indicates that Trump is an old man bereft of patience,” he said, adding: “From those words and expressions we can read how irritated he is now.”
The official added that the North Korean leader had not used “any irritating expression towards the US president as yet,” but warned his “understanding” of Trump could change.
‘NOTHING TO LOSE’
“He must understand that his own style bluffing and hypocrisy sound rather abnormal and unrealistic to us,” Kim Yong-chol said. “We have nothing more to lose.”
The North has raised tensions in recent months with a series of assertive statements and multiple weapons tests — including a “very important test” at its key satellite launch site at the weekend -- as its negotiating time limit approaches.
Kim Jong-un’s New Year speech, a key political set-piece in the isolated country, is also due on Jan. 1.
On Thursday, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui warned of again referring to Trump as a “dotard” — Pyongyang’s favored nickname for the US president at the height of tensions in 2017.
Another senior official last week said that what gift the US receives for Christmas would depend entirely on Washington’s actions.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia