Trump Praises ‘Good News’ From Wednesday’s North & South Korea Summit

Wednesday, the Inquisitr reported that North Korea and South Korea conducted a meeting in Pyongyang regarding peace efforts and status of the alleged North Korean denuclearization. Shortly after the meeting, CNN reports that Trump offered his input on the results. Trump apparently said many good things about the meeting, claiming that peace negotiations were moving forward.

“We had very good news from North Korea, South Korea. They met, and we had some great responses,” Trump said to the press.

However, CNN claims, experts do not agree with Mr. Trump’s assessment. Trump also praised his “relationships” with the leaders of both North and South Korea, touting the “calmness” of the negotiations.

“The relationships, I have to tell you, at least on a personal basis, they’re very good. It’s very much calmed down. We’re talking. It’s very calm. He’s calm. I’m calm. So we’ll see what happens.”

Apparently, the meeting resulted in a recommitment from North Korea to disable a few key nuclear items but came with the reinstatement that Kim Jong Un expects the U.S. to make some conceding moves first. According to some governmental experts, this meeting did not bring solid “good news” about anything, and that perhaps South Korea may undermine the U.S.’s efforts in achieving the denuclearization goals.

“North Korea recommits to denuclearization – we’ve come a long way.” @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2018

According to Jeffrey Lewis, who works in the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, the efforts shown by North Korea Wednesday were just another way for the country to “mimic disarmament,” while not actually pursuing the process.

“So these measures are gestures that resemble disarmament, but they don’t actually constrain North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs,” Lewis said to CNN.

In Trump’s remarks after the meeting, The Guardian says that he further stated that the latest meeting between North and South Korea showed “tremendous success,” and that the U.S. would like to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un soon to continue the conversation. While many analysts doubt the agreement between the U.S. and North Korea as being actionable, Trump keeps reiterating that he has hope for the situation. When asked about what types of concessions the U.S. might make to get North Korea’s disarmament going, his response was “We’ll see.”

Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst for Korea, questions the type of actions that North Korea seems to be expecting from Trump, pointing out that they have so far been left unspecified, The Guardian reports.

“The North Koreans want reciprocal action. What is that reciprocal action? They don’t specify so we don’t know. It is more than a peace declaration – a peace treaty, we have a problem,” she says.

Still, other analysts think the meeting today did show some progress. According to Joseph Yun, previous U.S. envoy on North Korea, the agreement was a step in the right direction.

“It opens the door a little bit. It could be the beginning of a process. I would very much hope that Washington would respond constructively to this opening.”