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BY ERICK SAN JUAN
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Friday, October 6, 2017
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(Continued from yesterday)
LIKE THE other sovereign states that are not in tune with what Uncle Sam wants, more sanctions are more likely than peaceful talks, and in the end war or regime change might just be the best for the west.
And in the latest report by Steve Holland (@atimes, 10-3-2017): “The White House ruled out talks with North Korea except to discuss the fate of Americans held there, again appearing to rebuke Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who said Washington was directly communicating with Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs.
“We’ve been clear that now is not the time to talk,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters, reiterating a tweet from President Donald Trump at the weekend that was seen as undercutting Tillerson.
“The only conversations that have taken place were that…would be on bringing back Americans who have been detained,” Sanders said. “Beyond that, there will be no conversations with North Korea at this time.”
Tillerson said during a trip to China that the United States was directly communicating with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs but that Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue.
Trump, who has traded insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent weeks, later dismissed any prospect of talks with North Korea as a waste of time.
“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Trump wrote on Twitter, using his sarcastic nickname for Kim.
“Save your energy, Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” Trump wrote.
It was not the first time the White House and State Department seemed at odds on policy issues, but when asked if Trump still had confidence in Tillerson as secretary of state, Sanders said: “He does.”
A senior administration official said Tillerson misspoke.
“I think it was just him misspeaking. He was just acknowledging the fact that we do have channels and we might have reason to talk if North Korea’s behavior changes sometime down the road,” the official said.
Dialogue with North?
Tillerson said in Beijing that the United States had multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang and that it was probing North Korea to see if it was interested in dialogue.
The top US diplomat expressed hope of reducing tensions with North Korea, which is fast advancing towards its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland.
“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson told a small group of reporters. “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?’” He said the United States had “a couple of, three, channels, open to Pyongyang.”
Another US official said Tillerson may have overstated the status of US lines of communication with North Korea for the benefit of his Chinese hosts, who have been pushing the Trump administration to do more to lure Pyongyang to the negotiating table.”
There are more to come, may it be word war or the real shooting war.
God forbid! (culdesac2008@gmail.com/PN)
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