North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un reassured that he will completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday. He, however, warns that he will take an alternative path if the United States will continue in forcing North Korea into unilateral action.
The North Korean leader announced during his New Year address that he is willing to meet U.S. President Donald Trump again to discuss the denuclearization. The leader urges the United States to do their part to speed up the process.
Kim said that North Korea has no option but to explore a new path in order to protect the country's sovereignty in case that the United States miscalculates the North Korean people's patience by forcing North Korea with sanctions and pressure without keeping a promise it made in front of the world.
The leader's speech fuelled the doubts of many whether North Korea intends to give up the nuclear weapons program that they consider important in the country's security.
At their landmark summit in Singapore in June, the Korean leader and his American counterpart promised to work towards denuclearization and build a "lasting and stable" peace regime. Nuclear images, however, shows that there is continued activity in North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities. It proves that the denuclearization has little progress.
North Korea demands that the United States should lift sanctions and declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War in response to the initial steps made by North Korea.
U.S. officials claim that the steps done by North Korea can be easily reversed and are not yet verified. The western country continued implementing additional economic sanctions to North Korea. The U.S. postponed some of its military exercises in South Korea. The North Korean leader calls for South Korea to end the joint military drills with the United States that involves strategic assets. The two Koreas are now working to build a permanent lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula.
According to Kim, now that North and South Korea decided to take the path of peace and prosperity, North Korea will insist that joining military exercises with outside forces should no longer be allowed and deployment of war equipment such as outside strategic assets should be completely stopped.
Harry J. Kazianis at the Washington-based Center for the National Interest said that North Korea seems determined in 2019 to receive some sort of sanctions relief. He added that the challenge is the willingness of the United States to back away from its position of zero sanctions relief.
