WASHINGTON: The White House said Sunday it would wait and see whether a new overture by North Korea for talks with the United States means it is serious about disarming, a step President Donald Trump and other world leaders agree must be the outcome of any future dialogue.
“We will see,” was the response from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was on the Korean peninsula Sunday as a member of the US delegation attending the Olympic games in South Korea. The delegation was led by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.
Sanders said President Trump remains committed to achieving the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of the peninsula and that his “maximum pressure campaign” against North Korea must continue until it abandons its nuclear and missile programs.
Trump imposed fresh sanctions against North Korea late last week as part of the pressure effort.
During Sunday’s closing ceremony for the games, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced that a North Korean delegate to the Olympics said his country is willing to hold talks with the US The move comes after decades of tensions between the two countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations, and a year of escalating rhetoric, including threats of war, between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The North has “ample intentions of holding talks with the United States,” Moon’s office said. The North’s delegation also agreed that “South-North relations and US-North Korean relations should be improved together,” the statement said.
Sanders said the US, South Korea and the international community “broadly agree” that denuclearization must be the outcome of any dialogue with North Korea. She said North Korea has a bright path ahead of it if it chooses denuclearization.
“We will see if Pyongyang’s message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization,” she said in a written statement. “In the meantime, the United States and the world must continue to make clear that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are a dead end.”
Trump once scolded Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who favors diplomacy with North Korea over military confrontation, for “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” which is Trump’s derisive nickname for North Korea’s leader.
At the Olympics opening ceremony earlier this month, the North Korean leader’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, shared a VIP box with Moon and Vice President Mike Pence, who led a separate US delegation, creating some awkward moments. Though Pence stood to cheer the entrance of the US team, he remained seated when athletes from North and South Korea marched together behind a “unification” flag, leaving Moon to instinctively turn around and shake Kim’s sister’s hand.
Pence and Kim Yo Jong did not speak. Pence’s office claimed afterward that the North pulled out of a planned meeting at the last minute.
During her visit, Ivanka Trump sat in the same box with Kim Yong Choi, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Worker’s Party Central Committee. They did not appear to interact when Jae-in shook hands with dignitaries at the beginning of Sunday’s closing ceremony.
Trump stepped up the pressure campaign against North Korea on Friday by slapping sanctions on scores of companies and ships accused of illicit trading with the pariah nation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US has now blacklisted virtually all ships being used by the North.
Trump has vowed to use force if necessary to prevent North Korea from acquiring a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the US mainland. At a White House news conference on Friday, he warned that the US would move to “phase two” in its pressure campaign if sanctions don’t work. Trump said such a step could be “very rough” and “very unfortunate for the world.” He did not elaborate.
“If we can make a deal it will be a great thing. If we can’t, something will have to happen,” Trump said.
White House will see if North Korea is serious about talks
White House will see if North Korea is serious about talks
First urban cable car unveiled outside Paris
- The cable car will carry some 11,000 passengers per day in its 105 gondolas
- The 138-million-euro project was cheaper to build than a subway, officials said
PARIS: Gondolas floated above a cityscape in the southeastern suburbs of Paris Saturday as the first urban cable car in the French capital’s region was unveiled.
Officials inaugurated the C1 line in the suburb of Limeil-Brevannes in the presence of Valerie Pecresse, the head of the Ile-de-France region, and the mayors of the towns served by the cable car.
The 4.5-kilometer route connects Creteil to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and passes through Limeil-Brevannes and Valenton.
The cable car will carry some 11,000 passengers per day in its 105 gondolas, each able to accommodate ten seated passengers.
The total journey will take 18 minutes, including stops along the way, compared to around 40 minutes by bus or car, connecting the isolated neighborhoods to the Paris metro’s line 8.
The 138-million-euro project was cheaper to build than a subway, officials said.
“An underground metro would never have seen the light of day because the budget of more than billion euros could never have been financed,” said Gregoire de Lasteyrie, vice president of the Ile-de-France regional council in charge of transport.
It is France’s seventh urban cable car, with aerial tramways already operating in cities including Brest, Saint-Denis de La Reunion and Toulouse.
Historically used to cross rugged mountain terrain, such systems are increasingly being used to link up isolated neighborhoods.
France’s first urban cable car was built in Grenoble, nestled at the foot of the Alps, in 1934. The iconic “bubbles” have become one of the symbols of the southeastern city.
