The US warned North Korea that it will hand down more sanctions if it will continue its nuclear weapons program. The warning came after the failed summit in Vietnam last month.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met late last month for a summit that was held in Hanoi, Vietnam. It was the leaders' second meeting and hopes for a good outcome run high but in the end, the talks failed.
As reported by Aljazeera, analysts opined that the collapse of the US-North Korea summit is a big stumbling block for all the involved parties in the nuclear standoff. Donald Trump wants a guarantee from Kim Jong Un that North Korea will halt all missile testing and ditch its nuclear weapons and in return, Pyongyang wants economic sanctions lifted from their country.
The two leaders did not sign a deal and their scheduled lunch did not push through as they did not reach a deal that both sides would agree on. Many believed it failed because Donald Trump misunderstood Kim Jong Un when the former stated that the North Korean leader wants the sanctions lifted in entirety when Kim was only asking for partial.
At any rate, days after the summit, the US issued a warning and stated that North Korea will get stricter sanctions if it will not denuclearize. The message was relayed by the US' national security adviser, John Bolton.
On Tuesday, Bolton told Fox Business Network that the US will observe if North Korea is really committed to giving up its nuclear program and everything else related to it. But, it Washington sees that it is not willing to do so, then they will be penalized.
"If they're not willing to do it, then I think President Trump has been very clear -they're not going to get relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them and we'll look at ramping those sanctions up in fact," Reuters quoted the security adviser as saying.
Just a few hours after Bolton's warning was announced, South Korea's news agency, Yonhap News, reported that SoKor's National Intelligence Service (NIS) detected activities in NoKor's missile launch facility that it dismantled last year.
The report stated that it seems North Korea is rebuilding the site and it started by putting back a roof and a door at the Dongchang-RI facility. Satellite images were attached to the report and they showed proof that structures are being rebuilt since Feb. 16. As of this time, the US has not commented on this allegation yet.
