Senior State Department official says this morning that North Korea asked for almost all sanctions imposed since 2016 to be lifted, including restrictions on "a broad range of products including metals, raw materials, transportation, seafood, coal exports, refined petroleum…"
"We asked the North Koreans to clarify for us what they meant by this, their qualification, and it was basically all the sanctions except for armaments," the official told reporters.
"They first surfaced this request during the working level negotiations in the week leading up to the summit. And we evaluated it closely and explained to them that wouldn’t work."
"What they had offered in return was the dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, but Yongbyon nuclear complex is also an important entity to define… And the North Koreans struggled to give us a precise definition of what that was."
"The dilemma that we were confronted with is the North Koreans at this point are unwilling to impose a complete freeze on their weapons of mass destruction programs…"
"…So to give many, many billions of dollars in sanctions relief would in effect put us in a position of subsidizing the ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea."
"We ended on a very good note between the two sides. We just couldn’t get there on the agreement at this point but within the discussions on this agreement we got to a level of detail that has eluded us for quite a while."
"We didn’t get a deal because the deal wasn’t there to be had but we are prepared to continue talking. I was very reassured to see the official press release from the North Koreans this morning, that they are actually taking the exact same tone that President Trump took."
Official: The definition of denuclearization is a matter we discussed at length in the working level negotiations, but it wasn’t in the North Korean proposal yesterday.
Q: What does that mean?
Official: They haven’t agreed to it.
"One of the things that you might potentially hear them say is they stopped testing, therefore all sanctions that were imposed because they were testing should be lifted…."
"… It's not the testing of the weapons, it's the actual presence of the nuclear weapons and by the way likewise in the case of missile testing."
Q: You said destruction of North Korea’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities, this complex extends beyond Yongbyon…. So, were those other facilities also on the table?
A: What the North Koreans proposed to us was closing down a portion of the Yongbyon complex.
Q: Next meetings?
A: We need to let the dust settle a little bit but as I said the N. Korean press reports of their version of the summit that came out today in KCNA was actually quite constructive as well and suggests to me that like us there’s still ample opportunity to talk.