WORLD
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
U.S. says North Korea missile test No ‘specific agenda,’ but Trump
was with ICBM, tensions escalate and Putin have lots to discuss
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The United States asserted
Tuesday that North Korea’s
latest missile launch was
indeed an intercontinental
ballistic missile, as the
North had boasted and the
U.S. and South Korea had
feared. Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson called it a “new
escalation of the threat” to the
U.S.
At the request of the U.S.,
Japan and South Korea, the
United Nations Security
Council was to hold an emer-
gency session on Wednesday
afternoon. Tillerson said that
was part of a U.S. response
that would include “stronger
measures to hold the DPRK
accountable,”
using
an
acronym for the isolated
nation’s formal name, the
Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea.
“Global action is required
to stop a global threat,”
Tillerson said. “Any country
that hosts North Korean
guest workers, provides any
economic or military benefits,
or fails to fully implement
UN Security Council resolu-
tions is aiding and abetting a
dangerous regime.”
He said the U.S. “will
never accept a nuclear-armed
North Korea.”
Tillerson’s
statement,
issued Tuesday evening
as most Americans were
celebrating the Fourth of
July holiday, notably did not
mention China, whose help
the Trump administration has
been aggressively seeking
to press Pyongyang over its
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
South Korean army soldiers ride on the back of a truck
during an annual exercise in Paju, near the border with
North Korea, South Korea, Tuesday.
nuclear weapons program. In
recent days, as the North has
continued to test missiles in
defiance of global pressure,
President Donald Trump has
started voicing doubt that
Beijing is up to the task. His
administration has taken steps
against China’s interests that
suggested its patience has run
short.
Tillerson’s comments were
the first public confirmation
by the United States that the
missile was indeed an ICBM,
constituting a major techno-
logical advancement for the
North and its most successful
missile test yet.
The prime danger from the
U.S. viewpoint is the prospect
of North Korea pairing a
nuclear warhead with an
ICBM. The latest US intelli-
gence assessment is that the
North probably does not yet
have that capability — putting
a
small-enough
nuclear
warhead atop an ICBM.
Initial U.S. military assess-
ments had been that it was an
intermediate-range missile.
NORAD, or the North
American Aerospace Defense
Command, said the missile
did not pose a threat to North
America.
Trump, in his initial
response to the launch on
Monday evening, urged China
on Twitter to “put a heavy
move on North Korea and end
this nonsense once and for
all!” But he also said it was
“hard to believe” that South
Korea and Japan, the two U.S.
treaty allies most at risk from
North Korea, would “put up
with this much longer.”
But China has long resisted
intensifying economic pres-
sure on neighboring North
Korea, in part out of fear of
the instability.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump’s first face-to-face meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin
on Friday will be brimming with global
intrigue, but the White House says there’s
“no specific agenda.” So in the absence
of a set list of topics, what are two of the
world’s most famously unpredictable
leaders to discuss?
Trump, who prefers to have neatly
packaged achievements to pair with
high-profile meetings, may be looking for
some concessions from Russia to show he’s
delivering progress and helping restore a
productive relationship between the two
powers. Putin would almost surely want
something in return, and there’s a long list
of “irritants” between the two countries
that they could potentially resolve.
Ahead of the meeting, White House
National Security Council and State
Department officials have been reviewing
possible gestures the U.S. could offer
Russia as part of the meeting, a current and
a former administration official said. They
weren’t authorized to comment publicly
and requested anonymity.
Yet any outward sign of bonhomie
between Trump and Putin would be
immediately seized upon by the president’s
critics and Russia hawks eager to show
he’s cozying up to the Russian leader. The
ongoing investigations into Russia’s inter-
ference in the U.S. election and potential
Trump campaign collusion won’t be far
from anyone’s minds.
The two leaders will sit down in
Hamburg, Germany, on the sidelines of a
Group of 20 summit of leading rich and
developing nations. Ahead of the meeting,
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak met
Monday in Washington with the No. 3 U.S.
diplomat, Thomas Shannon, to prepare.
Some issues that will be discussed:
ELECTION HACKING
Trump has been reluctant to publicly
and directly acknowledge Russia’s role
in meddling in the U.S. election, out of
apparent concern it undermines the legit-
imacy of his win. He’s also insisted there
was no collusion with him or his campaign,
a conclusion that U.S. investigators have
not yet reached.
U.S. officials says Russia tried to hack
election systems in 21 states and to sway
the election for Trump, a level of interfer-
ence in the U.S. political system that secu-
rity experts say represents a top-level threat
that should command a forceful response
from the U.S. Putin has denied all this.
There are no indications Trump plans to
raise Russia’s meddling at the meeting. Yet
if he doesn’t, it will give fuel to Trump’s
critics who say he’s blatantly ignoring a
major national security threat. It could also
embolden those who say Trump is trying
to cover for the Russians after benefiting
from their interference.
IRRITANTS
Each side has a long list of complaints
about the other that do not rise to the
geopolitical level but are nonetheless
impeding broader attempts to coordinate or
cooperate on larger concerns. After meeting
in Moscow earlier this year, Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to set up
a mechanism to deal with these issues the
Russians describe as “irritants” and the
Americans call “the smalls.”
But even that effort has stalled. After
the Treasury last month imposed new
sanctions on Russia for its intervention
in Ukraine, Moscow called off a sched-
uled second meeting between Thomas
Shannon, the U.S. undersecretary of state
for political affairs, and Sergey Ryabkov, a
Russian deputy foreign minister. Shannon
and Ryabkov’s canceled June 23 meeting
in St. Petersburg has yet to be rescheduled.
It was not clear if either Trump or Putin
would seek to reopen the channel when
they see each other in Hamburg, although
Tillerson and other State Department
officials have taken pains to stress that they
remain open to a resumption of the talks.
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