Talk, talk, launch: S. Korea’s Moon huddled with Obama three days after meeting Trump

by WorldTribune Staff, July 4, 2017

North Korea celebrated America’s Independence Day with the morning launch of what it announced was its first ICBM.

Meanwhile, just a short cruise missile flight south of the DMZ, former President Barack Obama debriefed South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-In on Moon’s meetings three days earlier at the White House.

While in office Obama said he appreciated ex-President George W. Bush’s silence, but he does not appear to be granting the same courtesy to his successor.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In with former U.S. President Barack Obama in Seoul on July 3. / Yonhap / EPA

He met on July 3 for 40 minutes in Seoul with Moon, who is said to have asked Obama for advice on North Korea and on working with President Donald Trump, the Korea Herald reported.

Both Moon and Obama favor appeasement policies toward North Korea. Critics blame such policies for the crisis the United States and Japan now face with a Pyongyang regime that has emerged as a nuclear state with growing long-range missile capability.

The meeting came on the heels of remarks by Obama, while in Indonesia, in which he condemned Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

In May, Obama urged members of Congress to have the “courage” to save Obamacare, and just a few weeks into Trump’s tenure Obama put out a statement through his spokesman attacking Trump’s so-called “travel ban.”

Meanwhile, North Korea on July 4 claimed Kim Jong-Un oversaw the successful test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that is capable of reaching a target anywhere in the world.

Moon had met with Trump just days earlier in Washington, where he said “President Trump and I agreed to continue to apply sanctions and pressure and dialogue in parallel to resolve the North’s nuclear and missile issues.” Moon said it was North Korea’s “last chance to enter the door of dialogue,” spokesman Yoon Young-Chan told reporters on July 3.

North Korean state television reported that the test-launch of the Hwasong-14 missile reached an altitude of 2,800 kilometers and hit its target after flying for 39 minutes.

Trump reacted on Twitter, saying it’s “hard to believe that South Korea…and Japan will put up with this much longer.”


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