He may have left the White House, Donald Trump has not finished surprising. According to a documentary from the British channel BBC just released, the former American president had proposed to the North Korean dictator, during his mandate, to benefit from the American presidential plane Air Force One to return to Pyongyang, capital of Korea. of the North, after their meeting at the Hanoi summit in 2019.
“President Trump offered Kim a return flight on Air Force One,” said Matthew Pottinger, the former Republican BBC’s Asia advisor who reported the information over the weekend. With this proposal, the former American leader “stunned even the most seasoned diplomats”, reports the BBC in this film entitled “Trump Takes on the World” – “Trump attacks the world”. Ultimately, Kim refused the offer.
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“The president knew that Kim had arrived in Hanoi after a multi-day train journey through China and the president said: I can get you home in two hours if you want. Kim declined. If the North Korean leader had accepted this offer, his presence – and probably that of a part of his entourage – on board the official plane of the American presidency in the airspace of North Korea would have raised concerns. many security issues.
Airplane diplomacy … and Cadillac
Kim went to his first summit with Donald Trump, in Singapore in 2018, aboard a plane loaned by China, Beijing being determined to keep North Korea, which serves as its sphere of influence. Buffer state between its borders and the American soldiers stationed in the South. At the Singapore summit, Donald Trump showed Kim the inside of his presidential car – a $ 1.5 million Cadillac nicknamed “The Beast” – “The Beast” – in a demonstration of their rapprochement.
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After having exchanged insults and threats of nuclear war, Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump had made an extraordinary rapprochement, marked by meetings as historic as symbolic. But no progress has been made on the thorny issue of Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic programs, and negotiations have stalled since the resounding failure of the second summit between the two men at the end of February 2019 in Hanoi.
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One of the reasons for this stalemate has been the lack of convergence on the concessions North Korea should make in exchange for lifting international sanctions against it. In January, Kim called the United States “North Korea’s” greatest enemy, adding that Washington’s policy towards Pyongyang “is never going to change,” “whoever is in power” in the United States. . North Korean official media have yet to refer by name to new US President Joe Biden.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr
