US President Donald Trump has blamed the country’s leaders who came before him for the tensions between him and Kim Jong-un.
With North Korea persisting as the major global challenge facing Trump this year, the president cast doubt on whether talks with the North Korean dictator would Kim even be useful.
‘I’d sit down, but I’m not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,’ he said, noting that past negotiations with the North Koreans by his predecessors had failed to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
He blamed his three immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, for failing to resolve the crisis and, a day after his doctor gave him a perfect score on a cognitive test, suggested he had the mental acuity to solve it.
‘I guess they all realized they’re going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests,’ he joked.
In an interview in which he claims Russia is giving North Korea a leg-up with international sanctions, the President said he hoped the standoff with Kim Jong-un could be resolved ‘in a peaceful way, but it’s very possible that it can’t’.
Donald Trump accused Russia on Wednesday of helping North Korea get supplies in violation of international sanctions
The president claimed that while China is helping choke off funds to Pyongyang’s dictator Kim Jong-Un (right) Russian president Vladimir Putin (left) is filling in the gaps
Trump has not ruled out a pre-emptive attack on Pyongyang as he orders in a new batch of missiles.
Asked whether he thought the United States needs more missile defense systems, he said: ‘Yes, yes I do. We’re ordering more missile defense and we’re ordering more missile offense also.’
With North Korea persisting as the major global challenge facing Trump this year, the president cast doubt during the 53-minute interview on whether talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would be useful. In the past he has not ruled out direct talks with Kim.
He declined to comment when asked whether he had engaged in any communications at all with Kim, with whom he has exchanged insults and threats, heightening tensions in the region.
Trump said Wednesday Russia is helping North Korea get supplies in violation of international sanctions and that Pyongyang is getting ‘closer every day’ to being able to deliver a long-range missile to the United States.
‘Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,’ Trump said during an Oval Office interview with Reuters.
‘What China is helping us with, Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.’
Today, the Kremlin bit back with Moscow calling the allegation that it is in breach of UN sanctions on North Korea as ‘absolutely groundless’.
The reaction came from an unnamed source at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
On Pyongyang, he said: ‘I’d sit down, but I’m not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,’ noting that past negotiations with the North Koreans by his predecessors had failed to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
‘I’m not sure that talks will lead to anything meaningful. They’ve talked for 25 years and they’ve taken advantage of our presidents, of our previous presidents,’ he said.
Trump praised China for its efforts to restrict oil and coal supplies to North Korea but said Beijing could do much more to help constrain Pyongyang.
But he said Russia appears to be filling in the gaps left by the Chinese.
Western European security sources told Reuters in late December that Russian tankers had supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea in violation of international sanctions. Russia has denied breaching North Korea sanctions.
North Korea relies on imported fuel to keep its struggling economy functioning. It also requires oil for its intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear program.
Trump has repeatedly blamed a U.S. investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election for hindering an improvement in U.S.-Russian relations.
Trump has leveraged his strong relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping to persuade him to clamp down on North Korea, but with Russia compensating it might not turn the tide
Trump said in an Oval Office interview that North Korea is getting ‘closer every day’ to completing a nuclear missile that could reach the United States
‘He can do a lot,’ Trump said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘But unfortunately we don’t have much of a relationship with Russia, and in some cases it’s probable that what China takes back, Russia gives. So the net result is not as good as it could be.’
Trump, who has grappled with nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by North Korea since he took office a year ago, said Pyongyang is steadily advancing in being able to deliver a missile to the United States.
‘They’re not there yet, but they’re close. And they get closer every day,’ said Trump.
North Korea said after its last intercontinental ballistic missile launch in November that the test had put the U.S. mainland within range. Some experts agreed that based on the missile´s trajectory and distance it had the capability to fly as far as Washington D.C.
They said, however, that North Korea had not yet offered any proof that it had mastered all technical hurdles, including development of a re-entry vehicle needed to deliver a heavy nuclear warhead reliably atop an ICBM, but it was likely that it soon would.
Pyongyang could reach that milestone by the end of the year, some intelligence officials said.
Trump said he welcomed talks between North and South Korea over the Winter Olympics to be held in the South next month and said this could be an initial phase in helping defuse the crisis.
He would not say whether the United States has been considering a limited, pre-emptive attack to show the North that the United States means business.
‘We’re playing a very, very hard game of poker and you don’t want to reveal your hand,’ he said.