Will give up nukes if US ‘removes nuclear threat’: N.Korea

N.Korea (Daily Mail), 20 December 2018 - North Korea says that it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes what Pyongyang called a nuclear threat.   

The surprisingly blunt statement jars with Seoul’s rosier presentation of the North Korean position and could rattle the fragile trilateral diplomacy to defuse a nuclear crisis that last year had many fearing war.  

The latest from North Korea comes as the United States and North Korea struggle over the sequencing of the denuclearization that Washington wants and the removal of international sanctions desired by Pyongyang.  

North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.