US, North Korea ‘should build on Pyongyang’s denuclearisation progress’ in Trump-Kim talks
Chinese representative at Shangri-La Dialogue says North Korea has shown it is committed to the goal
Beijing’s representatives at a regional security summit on Sunday said Pyongyang had made progress on denuclearisation and called on US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to build on those efforts when they meet in Singapore next week.
Colonel Liu Lin, a member of the Chinese delegation at the Shangri-La Dialogue, said the international community should recognise that the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula could not be achieved in a single summit and that Pyongyang had made “some progress” towards the goal.
“The North definitely wouldn’t want to completely give up its entire nuclear programme immediately because it wants [the US and other countries] to give it something in return when there is progress on denuclearisation – and so far it has taken action to show it is committed to denuclearising,” Lin, from the Academy of Military Science, said on the sidelines of the forum in Singapore, referring to Pyongyang dismantling its Punggye-ri nuclear test site last month.
Lin made the remarks after US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said at the same forum that North Korea would not get any sanctions relief until it had demonstrated “irreversible” steps towards denuclearisation. He said it was vital that the international community kept UN Security Council sanctions in place for now.
“North Korea will receive relief only when it shows verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearisation,” he said during public remarks at a trilateral meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts.