‘Escalation of Tensions’: North Korea Berates Trump Plan To Help Build Nuclear Subs for the South
Commentary from the North appears to throw cold water on the thinking that somehow the South can draw North Korea’s Kim into talks with Trump’s help.
North Korea sees America as “a springboard” for South Korea’s rise as a “quasi-nuclear weapon state” by supporting construction of the South’s first nuclear submarine.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency began a 1,600-word commentary on American “collusion” with South Korea by accusing Washington of “disregarding the danger of the global nuclear arms race” by giving the “green light for the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of nuclear waste fuel” needed to power a nuclear submarine.
The North’s commentary, published in English, offered an all-encompassing view of what Pyongyang thinks of America’s Korea policy, including Washington’s strong alliance with South Korea under its fledgling president, Lee Jae-myung. A left-of-center politician, Mr. Lee bonded with President Trump in their meeting last month before the gathering in the ancient Korean capital of Gyeongju of leaders of the 21 economies in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group.
Ignoring Mr. Lee’s pleas for dialogue with Pyongyang on top of Mr. Trump’s hopes for another meeting with his old friend, the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, the KCNA commentary called Mr. Trump’s assent to a South Korean nuclear submarine “a microcosm” of “confrontational moves and escalation of tensions” ever “more blatant” during the second Trump presidency.
The commentary appeared to throw cold water on Mr. Lee’s persistence in thinking that somehow he can draw Mr. Kim into talking to him with Mr. Trump’s help. Mr. Kim has refused South Korean pleas for dialogue since the failure of Mr. Trump’s second summit with Mr. Kim in Hanoi in February 2019. They met in an impromptu session at the truce village of Panmunjom four months later, but nothing came of the conversation in which Mr. Kim refused as always to give up the North’s program of building nuclear warheads and long-range missiles.
The commentary did not mention either Mr. Kim or Mr. Trump by name. It did, however, begin by citing the “joint fact sheet” that Washington and Seoul issued nearly two weeks after the Trump-Lee summit. Washington confirmed approval of South Korea building a nuclear submarine powered by reprocessed nuclear fuel despite the constraints of the American atomic energy act of 1954.
