The United States and its Asian allies worked Thursday to paper over any semblance of disagreement over President Donald Trump's concession to Kim Jong Un that the U.S. will halt military exercises with South Korea, with Trump's top diplomat insisting the president hadn't backed down from his firm line on North Korea's nukes.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, listens to speech of South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha as Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, left, watches during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meeting in Seoul with top South Korean and Japanese diplomats, put a more sober spin on several moves by Trump after his summit with Kim in Singapore fueled unease in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. He said Trump's curious claim that the North's nuclear threat was over was issued with "eyes wide open," and brushed off a North Korean state media report suggesting Trump would grant concessions even before the North fully rids itself of nuclear weapons.
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The United States and its Asian allies worked Thursday to paper over any semblance of disagreement over President Donald Trump's concession to Kim Jong Un that the U.S. will halt military exercises with South Korea, with Trump's top diplomat insisting the president hadn't backed down from his firm line on North Korea's nukes.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meeting in Seoul with top South Korean and Japanese diplomats, put a more sober spin on several moves by Trump after his summit with Kim in Singapore fueled unease in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. He said Trump's curious claim that the North's nuclear threat was over was issued with "eyes wide open," and brushed off a North Korean state media report suggesting Trump would grant concessions even before the North fully rids itself of nuclear weapons.
Pompeo thanked Beijing for its continuing efforts to help achieve the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea." He said both sides had agreed that sanctions would not be eased until that's achieved.
"We believe that the sanctions themselves are not the end," Geng said.
Trump's announcement minutes after the summit's conclusion that he would halt the "provocative" joint military drills were a shock to South Korea and caught much of the U.S. military off guard, too. Pyongyang has long sought an end to the exercises it considers rehearsals for an invasion, but U.S. treaty allies Japan and South Korea view them as critical elements of their own national security.
"This is a matter that military officials from South Korea and the United States will have to discuss further and coordinate," Kang said.
"We're going to get denuclearization," Pompeo said in the South Korean capital. "Only then will there be relief from the sanctions."
Pompeo flew from Seoul to China's capital, Beijing, later Thursday for a meeting with President Xi Jinping, whose country is believed to wield considerable influence with North Korea as its chief ally and economic lifeline.
"I also want to thank China and President Xi for his role in helping bring North Korea to the negotiating table," Pompeo said in a briefing with reporters.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, center, speaks as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha listens during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Pompeo thanked Beijing for its continuing efforts to help achieve the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea." He said both sides had agreed that sanctions would not be eased until that's achieved.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in remarks at the start of his meeting with Pompeo, described the Singapore summit as of "great historic significance" that could lead to "enduring peace." Wang said the U.S. should continue to "work through China."
Pompeo said there was still a risk that denuclearization might not be achieved and added there more work to be done by Beijing and Washington.
At a daily briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated China's support for a political settlement, while also pointing to an eventual lifting of United Nations Security Council economic sanctions.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono during a bilateral meeting at a hotel in Seoul, South Korea June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-ji/Pool
"We believe that the sanctions themselves are not the end," Geng said.
China has been praised by Trump for ramping up economic pressure on the North that the U.S. believes helped coax Kim to the negotiating table.
On the joint U.S.-South Korea drills that Trump — after meeting Kim — said would be terminated, Pompeo emphasized a key caveat: If the mercurial North Korean leader stops negotiating in good faith, the "war games" will be back on.
The words of reassurance from Pompeo came as diplomacy continued at an intense pace after Tuesday's summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting American president and North Korea's leader in six decades of hostility. In the village of Panmunjom along the North-South border, the rival Koreas on Thursday held their first high-level military talks since 2007, focused on reducing tensions across their heavily fortified border.
Yet even as U.S. and South Korean officials sought to parlay the momentum from the dramatic summit into more progress on the nuclear issue, there were persistent questions about whether Trump had given away too much in return for too little.
In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, South Korean Maj. Gen. Kim Do-gyun, right, tries to shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Lt. Gen. An Ik San during a meeting at the northern side of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, North Korea, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP).
Trump's announcement minutes after the summit's conclusion that he would halt the "provocative" joint military drills were a shock to South Korea and caught much of the U.S. military off guard, too. Pyongyang has long sought an end to the exercises it considers rehearsals for an invasion, but U.S. treaty allies Japan and South Korea view them as critical elements of their own national security.
So Pompeo had some explaining to do as he traveled to Seoul to brief the allies on what transpired in Singapore.
In public, at least, South Korea's leader cast the summit's outcome as positive during a short meeting with Pompeo at the Blue House, South Korea's presidential palace. President Moon Jae-in, an avowed supporter of engagement with North Korea, called it "a truly historic feat" that had "moved us from the era of hostility towards the era of dialogue, of peace and prosperity."
Still, there were signs as Pompeo met later with the top Japanese and South Korean diplomats that concerns about the freeze had not been fully resolved. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, speaking in Korean, told reporters afterward that the military drills issue "was not discussed in depth."
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, chats with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)
"This is a matter that military officials from South Korea and the United States will have to discuss further and coordinate," Kang said.
The U.S. has stationed combat troops in South Korea since the end of the Korean War and has used them in a variety of drills. The next scheduled major exercise, involving tens of thousands of troops, normally would be held in August.
The summit in Singapore did mark a reduction in tensions — a sea change from last fall, when North Korea was conducting nuclear and missile tests, and Trump and Kim were trading threats and insults that stoked fears of war.
Kim is now promising to work toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and state media heralded the meeting as victorious, with photos of Kim standing side-by-side with Trump on the world stage splashed across newspapers in Pyongyang. On Thursday, North Koreans finally got a glimpse of video of Trump and Kim together, as official Korean Central Television broadcast the first footage of Kim's trip to Singapore.
Trump seemed equally ecstatic. As he landed Wednesday in Washington following the summit, he declared on Twitter that America and the world can "sleep well tonight."
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attends a bilateral meeting with South Korea's President Moon Jae-in at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-ji/Pool
"There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea," Trump wrote, even though North Korea has yet to give up any of its fissile material, estimated by independent experts to be enough for between about a dozen and 60 nuclear bombs.
Pompeo rejected the suggestion that Trump's assertion was premature. He said Trump was proceeding "with eyes wide open" to the prospect that diplomacy may falter, and that Trump was merely reflecting the historic nature of his confab with Kim. The Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace treaty, leaving the United States and North Koreas in a technical state of war.
With the Trump-Kim summit concluded, the baton was being passed to lower-level U.S. and North Korean officials, who Pompeo said would likely resume meeting as early as the next week to hash out details of a disarmament deal, sure to be a complex and contentious process. He said the U.S. was hopeful North Korea would take "major" disarmament steps before the end of Trump's first term in office, which concludes in January 2021.
In the brief, four-point joint statement signed at the summit, North Korea committed "to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" — a promise it has made and reneged on several times in the past 25 years.
The statement made no mention of verification, despite Trump's longstanding insistence on "complete, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization. But Pompeo bristled at reporters who pressed him about that apparent omission, calling questions on the topic "insulting and ridiculous."
The omission is irrelevant, Pompeo said, adding that he was confident the North Koreans fully understood that verification would be a necessity. He pointed out that the statement makes reference to a previous agreement that did mention verification, and argued that as a result, the Trump-Kim statement automatically "incorporates" verification without having to state it outright.
PARIS (AP) —
Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem captured this year’s prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award Thursday with a depiction of loss and sorrow in Gaza, a heartrending photo of a Palestinian woman cradling the body of her young niece. The photograph, taken in Khan Younis just days after Salem’s own child was born, shows 36-year-old Inas Abu Maamar holding five-year-old Saly, who was killed along with her mother and sister when an Israeli missile struck their home.
Salem, who is Palestinian, described this photo filed Nov. 2 last year, as a “powerful and sad moment that sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip.”
The image ”truly encapsulates this sense of impact,” said global jury chair Fiona Shields, The Guardian newspaper's head of photography. “It is incredibly moving to view and at the same time an argument for peace, which is extremely powerful when peace can sometimes feel like an unlikely fantasy,” she added.
The World Press Photo jury praised the shot’s sense of care and respect and its offering of a “metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.”
This is not the first time Salem has been recognized for his work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; he received a World Press Photo award more than a decade ago for another depiction of the human toll of conflict in the Gaza strip.
In the three other global categories announced Thursday, South Africa’s Lee-Ann Olwage won Photo Story of the Year for her touching series “Valim-babena,” featured in GEO magazine. The project focused on the stigmatization of dementia in Madagascar, a topic she explored through intimate portraits of “Dada Paul” and his family. Lack of public awareness surrounding dementia means that people displaying symptoms of memory loss are often stigmatized.
In the series, “Dada Paul,” who has lived with dementia for 11 years, is tenderly cared for by his daughter Fara. One of the standout images in the series shows him preparing for church with his granddaughter Odliatemix, capturing moments of normalcy and warmth amidst the challenges of dementia.
Photographer Alejandro Cegarra, a Venezuelan native who migrated to Mexico in 2017, won the Long-Term Project award for “The Two Walls,” published by The New York Times and Bloomberg. Cegarra’s project, initiated in 2018, examines a shift in Mexico’s immigration policies, which have moved from being historically open to enforcing strict regulations at its southern border. The jury said the photographer's perspective as a migrant gave it a “sensitive," human-centered perspective, according to a press release.
Julia Kochetova of Ukraine won the Open Format award for “War Is Personal.” The project stood out from coverage of the ongoing conflict by offering a personal look at the harsh realities of war. On a dedicated website, she merged traditional photojournalism with a diary-like documentary style, incorporating photography, poetry, audio clips and music.
The Associated Press won the Open Format award in the regional Africa category with the multimedia story “Adrift,” created by journalists Renata Brito and Felipe Dana. The story investigates the fate of West African migrants who attempted to reach Europe via a treacherous Atlantic route but ended up on a ghost ship discovered off Tobago. The team’s compelling use of photography, cinematography and detailed narrative, enhanced by expert design and multimedia elements, highlights the perils faced by migrants and the human stories behind global migration issues.
The Associated Press' Ebrahim Noroozi won the Asia Stories award for his series “Afghanistan on the Edge,” which documents the country since the Taliban took over in August 2021.
World Press Photo is an independent, nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands, founded in 1955.
This image provided by World Press Photo is part of a series titled Afghanistan on the Edge by Ebrahim Noroozi, Associated Press, which won the World Press Photo Asia Series category and showsAn Afghan refugee rests in the desert next to a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. A huge number of Afghans refugees entered the Torkham border to return home hours before the expiration of a Pakistani government deadline for those who are in the country illegally to leave or face deportation. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
This image provided by World Press Photo is part of a series titled Afghanistan on the Edge by Ebrahim Noroozi, Associated Press, which won the World Press Photo Asia Series category and shows : Since the chaotic Taliban takeover of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, an already war-devastated economy once kept alive by international donations alone is now on the verge of collapse. There isn't enough money for hospitals. The World Health Organization is warning of millions of children suffering malnutrition, and the U.N. says 97% of Afghans will soon be living below the poverty line. Three Afghan internally displaced children look with surprise at an apple that their mother brought home after begging, in a camp on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Feb 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
This image provided by World Press Photo is part of a multimedia project by Associated Press' Renata Brito and Felipe Dana titled Adrift, won the World Press Photo Africa Regional Winner Open Format category and shows a mortuary technician opening the door of a refrigerator used to store the remains of migrants recovered from inside the Mauritania boat that appeared drifting near the island of Tobago, in Scarborough, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. In May 2021 a boat from Mauritania full of dead men was found off the coast of the Caribbean Island of Tobago. Who were these men and why were they on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Two visual journalists sought answers, uncovering a story about migrants from West Africa who seek opportunity in Europe via an increasingly popular but treacherous Atlantic route. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
This image provided by World Press Photo is part of a multimedia project by Associated Press' Renata Brito and Felipe Dana titled Adrift, won the World Press Photo Africa Regional Winner Open Format category and shows young fishermen walk into the ocean to board an artisanal fishing boat in Nouakchott, Mauritania, Friday, Dec. 10, 2021. In May 2021 a boat from Mauritania full of dead men was found off the coast of the Caribbean Island of Tobago. Who were these men and why were they on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Two visual journalists sought answers, uncovering a story about migrants from West Africa who seek opportunity in Europe via an increasingly popular but treacherous Atlantic route. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
This image provided by World Press Photo is part of a multimedia project by Associated Press' Renata Brito and Felipe Dana titled Adrift, won the World Press Photo Africa Regional Winner Open Format category and shows Moussa Sako, an asylum-seeker from Mali, who survived 22 days aboard a Mauritanian boat drifting in the Atlantic Ocean covers his face during an interview with the Associated Press in Guadalajara, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021. In May 2021 a boat from Mauritania full of dead men was found off the coast of the Caribbean Island of Tobago. Who were these men and why were they on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Two visual journalists sought answers, uncovering a story about migrants from West Africa who seek opportunity in Europe via an increasingly popular but treacherous Atlantic route. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Julia Kochetova is part of a series titled War is Personal which won the World Press Photo Open Format Award. Amidst tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and an effective stalemate that has lasted for months, there are no signs of peace on the horizon for Russia's war in Ukraine. While news media updates its audience with statistics and maps, and international attention drifts elsewhere, the photographer has created a personal website that brings together photojournalism with the personal documentary style of a diary to show the world what it is like to live with war as an everyday reality. (Julia Kochetova/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Julia Kochetova is part of a series titled War is Personal which won the World Press Photo Open Format Award and shows a stabilization point near Bakhmut, Ukraine, of the 5th assault brigade and 77th brigade. Hospitalliers battalion - volunteer battalion of combat medics are helping here. Amidst tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and an effective stalemate that has lasted for months, there are no signs of peace on the horizon for Russia's war in Ukraine. While news media updates its audience with statistics and maps, and international attention drifts elsewhere, the photographer has created a personal website that brings together photojournalism with the personal documentary style of a diary to show the world what it is like to live with war as an everyday reality. (Julia Kochetova/Der Spiegel/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Julia Kochetova is part of a series titled War is Personal which won the World Press Photo Open Format Award and shows the training of mobilized conscripts of 68th brigade in Donetsk region, not far from frontline. 68th brigade recently liberated Blagodatne village during the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The instructors came from US, working for NGO "Saber".Amidst tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and an effective stalemate that has lasted for months, there are no signs of peace on the horizon for Russia's war in Ukraine. While news media updates its audience with statistics and maps, and international attention drifts elsewhere, the photographer has created a personal website that brings together photojournalism with the personal documentary style of a diary to show the world what it is like to live with war as an everyday reality. (Julia Kochetova/Der Spiegel/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Alejandro Cegarra for The New Times/Bloomberg is part of a series titled The Two Walls which won the World Press Photo Long-Term Project Award and shows Carlos Mendoza, a Venezuelan migrant, crossing the Rio Grande river to seek asylum in the United States. Piedras Negras, Mexico, 7 October 2023. (Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Alejandro Cegarra for The New Times/Bloomberg is part of a series titled The Two Walls which won the World Press Photo Long-Term Project Award and shows a migrant walking atop a freight train known as "The Beast." Migrants and asylum seekers lacking the financial resources to pay a smuggler often resort to using cargo trains to reach the United States border. This mode of transportation is very dangerous; over the years, hundreds have fallen onto the tracks and have been killed or maimed. Piedras Negras, Mexico, 8 October 2023. (Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times/Bloomberg/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Lee-Ann Olwage for GEO is part of a series titled Valim-babena which won the World Press Photo Story of the Year Award and shows Dada Paul Rakotazandriny (91), who is living with dementia, and his granddaughter, Odliatemix Rafaraniriana (5), get ready for church on Sunday morning at his home in Antananarivo, Madagascar. 12 March 2023. (Lee-Ann Olwage/Geo/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Lee-Ann Olwage for GEO is part of a series titled Valim-babena which won the World Press Photo Story of the Year Award and shows Joeline (Fara) Rafaraniriana (41) watches her father, Dada Paul Rakotazandriny (91) clean fish at home on Sunday afternoon. A typical Sunday consists of the family attending church in the morning and spending time together in the afternoon. Fara works during the week and as the sole provider and carer for her daughter and father struggles to manage all her responsibilities in the absence of assistance by her siblings who live close by. Mandrosoa Ivato, Antananarivo, Madagascar. 12 March 2023. (Lee-Ann Olwage/Geo/World Press Photo via AP)
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Mohammed Salem of the Reuters news agency won the World Press Photo Award of the Year and shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embracing the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters/World Press Photo via AP)
