FOREIGN POLICY/NATIONAL SECURITY/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The White House on Sunday [9-17-17] reiterated its position that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must give up his nuclear weapons, days after President Donald Trump hinted again at a military strike on the North.
White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Sunday the U.S. policy remains that North Korea must denuclearize. Pyongyang shows no signs of halting the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, launching several missiles and testing a nuclear device as recently as this month…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have suggested that talks with North Korea could take place if the regime halts weapons and missile tests.
Critics of the administration position and many Asia policy analysts dismiss the likelihood that Mr. Kim will easily give up his nascent nuclear-weapon program…
Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Messrs. Tillerson and Mattis and Ms. Haley, have been working to pressure China to coerce North Korea into halting its nuclear and missile programs.
But those efforts thus far have fallen short. Last week, Mr. Kim launched a missile that traveled more than 2,000 miles over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. The North claimed Sept. 3 that it had conducted a nuclear test, the country’s sixth.
Mr. Tillerson said he has seen no indication that the North is responding to sanctions by halting its testing of nuclear weapons or missiles.”
-Gordon Lubold and Ben Leubsdorf, “U.S. Orders ‘Rocket Man’ Kim Jong Un to Ditch Nuclear Weapons,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 17, 2017 09:12pm