{"id":36920,"date":"2019-08-10T11:12:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-10T03:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=36920"},"modified":"2019-08-10T13:53:22","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T05:53:22","slug":"trump-sides-with-nkoreas-kim-on-war-games-amid-new-missile-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=36920","title":{"rendered":"Trump sides with NKorea\u2019s Kim on war games amid new missile tests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Donald Trump said that he agreed with Kim Jong Un\u2019s opposition to US-South Korea war games,
refusing to criticize missile tests that Pyongyang said are a \u201csolemn
warning\u201d over the exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said he had received a \u201cbeautiful letter\u201d from Kim expressing
Pyongyang\u2019s anger over the joint war games, which spurred the series of tests of extremely fast, short-range guided missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But hours after Trump said he foresaw having another meeting with Kim,
South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired two more apparent
rockets into the East Sea, or Sea of Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the fifth round of missile launches in two weeks, and came just days
after US and South Korean forces began their defense readiness exercises,
which Kim\u2019s government has said are a \u201cflagrant violation\u201d of the diplomatic process between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newest launch came after Trump strained to keep the door open for
denuclearization negotiations with Kim after months in which no progress has been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While other US officials have called the launches \u201cprovocations,\u201d Trump
said he agreed with the North Korean leader and was hoping to meet him again, with talks having been frozen for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got a very beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un yesterday,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt
was a very positive letter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t happy with the war games,\u201d Trump said, referring to the US-South Korean military exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs you know, I\u2019ve never liked it either. I\u2019ve never been a fan. And you
know why? I don\u2019t like paying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has appeared determined to secure a denuclearization agreement with North Korea ahead of the November 2020 US presidential elections, despite faltering talks since he first met Kim in a historic ice-breaking summit in Singapore in June 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the US temporarily froze military exercises with South Korea
and Trump claimed Kim had agreed to give up his newly-acquired nuclear
weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Pyongyang has maintained that the United States must lift its economic
embargo and sanctions on the country to make any progress in nuclear talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even after their abortive second summit in Hanoi in February, Trump has been loath to criticize the North Korean leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June he offered an olive branch by meeting Kim in the Panmunjon truce
village on the North Korea-South Korea border, the first sitting US president
ever to step inside the North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on Friday, he said the missile launches weren\u2019t important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say it again. There have been no nuclear tests. The missile tests
have all been short-range. No ballistic missile tests, no long-range
missiles,\u201d Trump said. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Donald Trump said that he agreed with Kim Jong Un\u2019s opposition to US-South Korea war games,refusing to criticize missile tests that Pyongyang said are a \u201csolemnwarning\u201d over the exercises. Trump said he had received a \u201cbeautiful letter\u201d from Kim expressingPyongyang\u2019s anger over the joint war games, which spurred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":31845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36920"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}