BACKING DOWN

White House Could ‘Tacitly Accept’ North Korea as a Nuclear Power, Says Report

Reported new strategy aims to stall new nuke production, rather than dismantle Kim Jong Un’s existing weapons

The White House is ready to abandon its demands for total denuclearization in North Korea, and will instead accept a “nuclear freeze” that keeps the country from making any new nuclear material in return for lifting some U.S. sanctions, The New York Times reports. However, even this scaled-back plan might fail due to the requirement of a regime of invasive foreign inspections, according to the report. National Security Adviser John Bolton disputed the report Monday morning, saying he hasn’t “discussed or heard of any desire” to agree to a freeze. (Bolton was reported to be on a visit to Mongolia during the Trump meetup at the DMZ.)

Meanwhile, images of Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong Un at the border Sunday have been broadcast on North Korean state media, with broadcaster KCNA calling the last-minute meeting an “amazing event.” KCNA said the leaders had agreed to “push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in bilateral relations,” according to the BBC.