Road to N. Korea's denuclearization is littered with failure

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.

While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the despot he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington took shape:

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North and the six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea to launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test detonation.

North Korea agreed to resume the disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other nations reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and re-allowing international inspectors into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared it will resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April when the North launched a long-range rocket it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of weapons tests that marked 2017, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November last year.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University who's advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' — taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities — and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said.</s>Road to N. Korea's denuclearization is littered with failure

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.

While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the dictator he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned summits took shape:

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 that it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North, and six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test.

North Korea agreed to resume the six-nation disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other countries reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and allowing international inspectors back into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared that it would resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April 2012 when the North launched a long-range rocket that it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December 2012 that it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of 2017 weapons tests, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with South Korean President Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the Korean Peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, who is advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' — taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities — and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said.</s>SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of -- Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.

While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the despot he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington took shape:

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North and the six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea to launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test detonation.

North Korea agreed to resume the disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other nations reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and re-allowing international inspectors into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared it will resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April when the North launched a long-range rocket it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of weapons tests that marked 2017, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November last year.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University who's advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' -- taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities -- and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said.</s>Road to N. Korea's denuclearization is littered with failure

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch.

While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the despot he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington took shape:

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North and the six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea to launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test detonation.

North Korea agreed to resume the disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other nations reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and re-allowing international inspectors into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared it will resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April when the North launched a long-range rocket it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of weapons tests that marked 2017, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November last year.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University who's advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' — taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities — and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said.</s>Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Saturday he welcomed North Korea’s statement that it was suspending all nuclear and missile tests as “forward motion” but that this must lead to verifiable denuclearisation.

“This announcement is forward motion that I’d like to welcome,” Abe told reporters.

“But what’s important is that this leads to complete, verifiable denuclearisation. I want to emphasize this.”

Japan has advocated a policy of maximum pressure on North Korea to get the reclusive state to abandon its weapons program.</s>"This is a step forward. I welcome it," Abe was cited as saying by the Kyodo news agency after the North announced the decision was effective immediately.

The prime minister added that the end goal remained a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear, ballistic weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

Japan’s Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera however, lambasted the promise as "meaningless" for Japan unless the North halted its short- and medium-range missiles. "I am not satisfied at all," he was quoted as saying by the Nikkei newspaper.

Onodera said it was not the time to ease international pressure on North Korea, which he said must give up all nuclear weapons. Japan would keep maximum pressure on the reclusive state until it fully complied, he added.

Meanwhile, the office of South Korea’s president has praised as meaningful the promise made by the North to halt tests.

"North Korea's decision is meaningful progress for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which the world wishes for," the statement cited by the Yonhap news agency read.

North Korea said it halted nuclear and missile tests to focus on economic growth, according to the state KCNA news agency. It will hold on to its nuclear arsenal to be able to respond to any nuclear threat or provocation, it added.</s>Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday cautiously welcomed North Korea's pledge to halt nuclear tests and intercontinental missile launches but its defence minister warned Tokyo will continue to put maximum pressure on Pyongyang.

"We welcome it as a forward-looking move... but an important thing is whether the move will lead to the complete abandonment of missile and nuclear developments in a verifiable and irreversible manner," Abe told reporters.

"We want to watch it closely."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged Saturday his country would halt nuclear tests and intercontinental missile launches, a move welcomed by US President Donald Trump and South Korea.

But Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said earlier that Japan "can't be satisfied", because Pyongyang did not mention giving up short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

Onodera said Tokyo would persist with its policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang so that it ultimately gives up its "weapons of mass destruction, nuclear arms and missiles".

Japan, a close US ally in the region, is in the direct firing line of North Korean missiles and saw two fly over its territory in 2017, sparking outrage and raising tensions to fever pitch.

"(North Korea) has made a lot of promises and we paid money on the condition that they will give up experiment sites, but they continued," Aso told reporters in Washington, referring to Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

The North's declaration, long sought by Washington, comes less than a week before Kim meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a summit, ahead of a much-anticipated encounter with Trump himself.

Earlier this week, Abe held talks with Trump in Florida and displayed a united front on North Korea, including on the issue of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea, a major domestic issue.</s>(CNN) When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his South Korea counterpart, Moon Jae-in, meet next Friday, the most important topic on the agenda is the one on which there has been least clarity: denuclearization.

The term has been bandied about in recent weeks, from Seoul to Washington to Beijing, yet there's little agreement on what the term means -- and confusion could lead to trouble in this week's summit as well as the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kim.

South Korean officials and Chinese state media have said Kim is willing to discuss denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

On Thursday, President Moon announced North Korea had not raised its long-running demand for the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons -- an apparent concession that analystsgreeted with skepticism.

"North Korea has been saying all the right things ... they want this summit to occur and they're doing what it takes to make it happen," said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

So far, North Korean state media has made no mention of the topic, and public statements by Kim have been vague.

It elicited a positive response from US President Donald Trump, who said there was now a "good chance" of denuclearization by North Korea.

But are Trump, Kim and Moon talking about same thing when it comes to North Korea giving up its nuclear capabilities?

Denuclearization: What the US and South Korea mean

Over the past decade, denuclearization in North Korea has only ever meant one thing for the United States and South Korea.

"It's called CVID -- complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North Korean program," said Josh Pollack, senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

"Irreversible," in the practical sense, aims to ensure the current facilities cannot be reactivated after they've been dismantled, Pollack said.

Any denuclearization deal would need to include a series of "verifiable" steps for dismantling North Korea's program, carried out under the eyes of independent observers, former Australian Prime Minister and diplomat Kevin Rudd told CNN in March.

"Unless there is independent monitoring ... any unilateral undertakings by the North Koreans will probably not be worth the paper they're written on," he said.

For decades, the US and South Korea have pushed for denuclearization in North Korea.

In 1991, Pyongyang joined Seoul in signing a "joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." Two years later, North Korea pledged it would dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for international aid.

However, he said he'd be willing to stand up and leave the highly anticipated summit should the meeting fall short of his expectations.

On South Korea's part, Moon denied on Thursday there was any separation between what the North and the South meant by denuclearization. "I do not think there is any difference in the concept," he said.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised talks on denuclearization in Beijing in March, according to Xinhua, he didn't speak of Pyongyang ending its program. He spoke of "denuclearization on the (Korean) Peninsula."

"To Kim, denuclearization applies to the whole peninsula, which includes the South," David Maxwell, retired US Army Special Forces colonel and a fellow at the Institute of Korean American Studies, told CNN in March, prior to Moon's statement on Thursday.

Experts said Pyongyang has long been expected to push for American military presence across the border to be part of the discussion, a position Pollack said he wasn't sure had changed despite the South Korean's president's remarks.

Although the US hasn't stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea since 1992, Pollack said North Korea considered the US's mere presence on the peninsula a nuclear threat.

"They really are threatened by superior American and South Korean military power, they need nuclear weapons to try and prevent an invasion in their view," Pollack said.

"They feel the need to equate their nuclear program with the (US and South Korean) military alliance and claims the military alliance is a nuclear threat, when there's no real grounds for that."

Experts said North Korea's apparent change of heart on the US military presence in South Korea seemed at best a temporary concession or, at worst, an attempt to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.

"The pessimistic interpretation is that Kim is intent on making concession after concession in private to show Moon that he is the reasonable one, with the expectation that Trump will ultimately be unable or unwilling to deliver," Pollack said.

Experts told CNN the confusion over how much each side was willing to give and what their basic goals were for the summits make a positive outcome harder to see.

Adam Cathcart, an expert on North Korea at the University of Leeds in the UK, said the hopes of some officials in Washington that Kim would willingly give up his nuclear weapons program were "utopian, really pie in the sky."

The reality, argue analysts, is there simply too much distrust and too little understanding between the two sides to come to an agreement.

"They will affirm the principle of denuclearization as they did in 2005," said Pollack. "And the implementation will be drawn up and never happen," he said.</s>BRUSSELS - The European Union's foreign affairs chief said on Saturday that North Korea's announcement to stop nuclear tests was a positive step and called for an "irreversible denuclearization" of the Asian country.



The North Korean move "is a positive, long sought-after step on the path that has now to lead to the country's complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization," Federica Mogherini said in a statement.</s>(CNN) When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his South Korea counterpart, Moon Jae-in, meet next Friday, the most important topic on the agenda is the one on which there has been least clarity: denuclearization.

The term has been bandied about in recent weeks, from Seoul to Washington to Beijing, yet there's little agreement on what the term means -- and confusion could lead to trouble in this week's summit as well as the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kim.

South Korean officials and Chinese state media have said Kim is willing to discuss denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

On Thursday, President Moon announced North Korea had not raised its long-running demand for the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons -- an apparent concession that analystsgreeted with skepticism.

"North Korea has been saying all the right things ... they want this summit to occur and they're doing what it takes to make it happen," said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

So far, North Korean state media has made no mention of the topic, and public statements by Kim have been vague.

It elicited a positive response from US President Donald Trump, who said there was now a "good chance" of denuclearization by North Korea.

But are Trump, Kim and Moon talking about same thing when it comes to North Korea giving up its nuclear capabilities?

Denuclearization: What the US and South Korea mean

Over the past decade, denuclearization in North Korea has only ever meant one thing for the United States and South Korea.

"It's called CVID -- complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North Korean program," said Josh Pollack, senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

"Irreversible," in the practical sense, aims to ensure the current facilities cannot be reactivated after they've been dismantled, Pollack said.

Any denuclearization deal would need to include a series of "verifiable" steps for dismantling North Korea's program, carried out under the eyes of independent observers, former Australian Prime Minister and diplomat Kevin Rudd told CNN in March.

"Unless there is independent monitoring ... any unilateral undertakings by the North Koreans will probably not be worth the paper they're written on," he said.

For decades, the US and South Korea have pushed for denuclearization in North Korea.

In 1991, Pyongyang joined Seoul in signing a "joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." Two years later, North Korea pledged it would dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for international aid.

However, he said he'd be willing to stand up and leave the highly anticipated summit should the meeting fall short of his expectations.

On South Korea's part, Moon denied on Thursday there was any separation between what the North and the South meant by denuclearization. "I do not think there is any difference in the concept," he said.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised talks on denuclearization in Beijing in March, according to Xinhua, he didn't speak of Pyongyang ending its program. He spoke of "denuclearization on the (Korean) Peninsula."

"To Kim, denuclearization applies to the whole peninsula, which includes the South," David Maxwell, retired US Army Special Forces colonel and a fellow at the Institute of Korean American Studies, told CNN in March, prior to Moon's statement on Thursday.

Experts said Pyongyang has long been expected to push for American military presence across the border to be part of the discussion, a position Pollack said he wasn't sure had changed despite the South Korean's president's remarks.

Although the US hasn't stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea since 1992, Pollack said North Korea considered the US's mere presence on the peninsula a nuclear threat.

"They really are threatened by superior American and South Korean military power, they need nuclear weapons to try and prevent an invasion in their view," Pollack said.

"They feel the need to equate their nuclear program with the (US and South Korean) military alliance and claims the military alliance is a nuclear threat, when there's no real grounds for that."

Experts said North Korea's apparent change of heart on the US military presence in South Korea seemed at best a temporary concession or, at worst, an attempt to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.

"The pessimistic interpretation is that Kim is intent on making concession after concession in private to show Moon that he is the reasonable one, with the expectation that Trump will ultimately be unable or unwilling to deliver," Pollack said.

Experts told CNN the confusion over how much each side was willing to give and what their basic goals were for the summits make a positive outcome harder to see.

Adam Cathcart, an expert on North Korea at the University of Leeds in the UK, said the hopes of some officials in Washington that Kim would willingly give up his nuclear weapons program were "utopian, really pie in the sky."

The reality, argue analysts, is there simply too much distrust and too little understanding between the two sides to come to an agreement.

"They will affirm the principle of denuclearization as they did in 2005," said Pollack. "And the implementation will be drawn up and never happen," he said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe praises North Korea's statement that it would suspend nuclear and missile tests, but he also states the results must lead to verifiable denuclearization.