thank you baker
Trump says US, N.Korea 'negotiating' on location for next Kim summit
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said Sunday negotiations are underway on the location of his next summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while remaining evasive on its timing.
Trump, who held a historic summit with Kim in Singapore in June, said earlier in the week he had received a "great letter" from the North Korean leader but declined to reveal its contents.
"We are negotiating a location," he told reporters before boarding a helicopter for the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, where he said he would be discussing a trade deal with China.
"It will be announced probably in the not too distant future," he said of a summit with Kim. "They do want to meet and we want to meet and we'll see what happens."
"With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue," Trump added, saying he had "indirectly spoken" with Kim.
The latest letter from Kim came after the North Korean leader warned in a New Year's speech that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions.
Trump said Sunday the sanctions remain "in full force and effect" and would do so until the United States saw "very positive" results.
At the first summit between the longtime adversaries in June, Trump and Kim agreed to work toward the Korean peninsula's denuclearization but with little apparent agreement on what that means.
The United States has been pressing for North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons before any easing of economic pressure.
Kim, whose family has ruled North Korea with an iron fist for 70 years, wants immediate economic benefits and a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War.
Trump has cast his first summit with Kim as a major diplomatic victory, and on Sunday repeated his claim that there would be war in Asia had they not sat down to talk.
"Anyone else but me, you would have been at war right now … You right now would have been at a nice big fat war in Asia with North Korea if I hadn't been elected president."
But progress has stalled since the Singapore summit with the two sides disagreeing over the meaning of their vaguely-worded declaration, and the pace of US-North Korean negotiations has slowed, with meetings and visits cancelled at short notice.
Culminating in late 2017, the North has carried out six atomic blasts and launched rockets capable of reaching the entire US mainland, but has now carried out no such tests for more than a year.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/07/19/trump-says-us-nkorea-negotiating-on-location-for-next-kim-summit
Trump adviser: U.S. to leave Syria once IS beaten, Kurds safe
JERUSALEM — U.S. troops will not leave northeastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and American-allied Kurdish fighters are protected, a top White House aide said Sunday, signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks.
While U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said there is now no timetable, President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to withdrawing U.S. troops, though he said “we won’t be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone.”
Trump had said in his Dec. 19 withdrawal announcement that U.S. forces “have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” and added in a video posted to Twitter, “Now it’s time for our troops to come back home.”
Bolton said in Israel that the U.S. would pull out only after its troops had rooted out what’s left of IS in Syria and after the administration had reached an agreement with Turkey to protect Kurdish militias who have fought alongside Americans against the extremists.
In Washington, Trump told reporters at the White House that “we are pulling back in Syria. We’re going to be removing our troops. I never said we’re doing it that quickly.” But in that Dec. 19 video, the president had said of the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria: “They’re all coming back, and they’re coming back now.”
And officials said at the time that while many details were yet to be finalized, they expected American forces to be out by mid-January.
“I think this is the reality setting in that you got to plan this out,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. He told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the bottom line here is we want to make sure we get this right, that ISIS doesn’t come back. And I applaud the president for re-evaluating what he’s doing. … He has a goal in mind of reducing our presence. I share that goal. Let’s just do it smartly.”
Trump’s decision last month drew widespread criticism from allies, led to the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and raised fears over clearing the way for a Turkish assault on the Kurdish fighters. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a terrorist group linked to an insurgency within its own borders.
‘There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal,” Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem. “The timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement.”
He was to be in Turkey on Monday, accompanied by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, for talks with government officials.
Bolton said the U.S. wants its Kurdish allies in Syria protected from any planned Turkish offensive – a warning to be delivered to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We don’t think the Turks ought to undertake military action that’s not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States,” Bolton said. He said that in upcoming meetings with Turkish officials, he will seek “to find out what their objectives and capabilities are and that remains uncertain.”
Bolton said Trump has made clear he would not allow Turkey to kill the Kurds. “That’s what the president said, the ones that fought with us,” Bolton said.
Bolton said the U.S. has asked the Kurds to “stand fast now” and refrain from seeking protection from Russia or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. “I think they know who their friends are,” he added, speaking of the Kurds.
Jim Jeffrey, the special representative for Syrian engagement and the newly named American special envoy for the anti-Islamic State coalition, is to travel to Syria this coming week in an effort to reassure the Kurdish fighters that they are not being abandoned, Bolton said.
Turkey’s presidential spokesman called allegations that his country planned to attack the U.S.-allied Kurds in Syria “irrational” and said Turkey was fighting terrorism for national security.
In comments carried by the official Anadolu news agency, Ibrahim Kalin said the Kurdish fighters oppressed Syrian Kurds and pursued a separatist agenda under the guise of fighting IS. “That a terror organization cannot be allied with the U.S. is self-evident,” he said.
more: https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/2019/01/06/trump-adviser-us-leave-syria-beaten-kurds-safe/38854143/