MILITARY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “North Korea’s lead negotiator in nuclear talks with the US, Kim Yong Chol, arrived in Washington Thursday [1-17-19], just hours after President Donald Trump rolled out a new missile defense strategy that appears to contradict his own claim that Pyongyang is no longer a nuclear threat. Kim arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport Thursday evening, bringing with him a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meant for Trump, a source familiar with the denuclearization talks between the US and North Korea told CNN. Lead negotiator Kim was spotted leaving the airport with US Special Representative to North Korea Steve Biegun and Pak Chol, a North Korean official who chairs the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee. Amid signs the two sides are close to agreeing to a second summit the newly unveiled Missile Defense Review, which Trump personally introduced at the Pentagon, explicitly states that North Korea remains an ‘extraordinary threat’ to the US, an assessment that is consistent with previous findings by US military and intelligence agencies but rarely acknowledged by Trump himself.”
–Zachary Cohen, “Kim’s envoy arrives in DC as Pentagon states ‘extraordinary threat’ posed by North Korea Zachary Cohen,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, January 17, 2019 3:56 am