NORTH KOREA/SANCTIONS/SUMMIT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “North Korea asked for only a partial lifting of sanctions during a meeting this week with US President Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said during a rare news conference early Friday [3-1-19] morning. Pyongyang would be willing to allow US experts to witness North Korea permanently dismantle uranium and plutonium production facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear site if the US removed partial sanctions, Ri said…Ri made the comments just hours after Trump walked away from negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam. The US President said he did so because North Korea demanded the removal of all sanctions levied against Pyongyang…Ri appeared to suggest Trump’s claims were incorrect, saying North Korea only asked for the removal of five of the 11 sets of sanctions levied by the United Nations Security Council to punish Pyongyang for its repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Those sanctions have stood in the way of Kim’s efforts to improve the North Korean economy and raise the livelihood of his people, one of the young North Korean leader’s stated goals for his country.”
–Joshua Berlinger, Jake Kwon and Sophie Jeong, “North Korea asked for only a partial lifting of sanctions at summit with Trump, its foreign minister said,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, February 28, 2019 1:25 am