The top Republican of the House Armed Services Committee suspects North Korea is being disingenuous in its overtures for peace.
With a meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expected in the coming weeks, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said Sunday that Pyongyang is likely trying to drive a wedge between U.S. and its allies in South Korea.
“I think the history of these negotiations through several administrations shows that they tried to manipulate world opinion for their benefit,” Thornberry said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “It may also be that they have conducted enough nuclear tests, enough missile tests that they are pretty confident with their capabilities. But at the same time, because of sanctions, because of Chinese pressure, because of the president’s rather unconventional rhetoric, they may feel a need to have a P.R. offensive and I have no doubt their hope is to divide us from our allies in South Korea, to ease some of the sanctions, to ease the pressure coming from China so that they are not so isolated in the world. So there’s a military aspect and then there is a world opinion.”
Last month Kim participated in a historic meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, becoming the first North Korean leader to step foot on South Korean soil since the 1950-1953 Korean War. There the pair agreed to seek peace in the Korean Peninsula, marking a significant turnaround from 2017, during which Pyongyang conducted multiple nuclear and missile tests in defiance of international sanctions.
Earlier this year it was revealed Trump had accepted an invitation from Kim to meet and discuss denuclearization. Moments before being sworn in as secretary of state last week, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, said the U.S. will agree to nothing but the “permanent, verifiable [and] irreversible” destruction of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missiles program.
Pompeo held secret talks in North Korea over the Easter holiday and is the most senior U.S. official to have spoken directly with Kim.
North Korea has already made commitments to denuclearization, and last month Kim vowed to shut down his country’s nuclear test site in May and pledged to allow U.S. and South Korean experts and journalists to view the process.
Thornberry said he is “very skeptical” the regime will follow through and advised the U.S. to “prepare for the worst.”
