Asked on Monday whether Kim Jong Un had responded to American approaches, President Donald Trump said he had. "Yes. He responded," and the exchange was "very positive." He did not say what had been proposed, when, or through what channel.
In the same remarks he returned to South Korea, and not warmly. The United States keeps 39,000 troops there to defend the country, he said, and he found it strange that Seoul would not help in the Iran operation.
This is the day after he told the Pentagon to cut back the annual exercises with South Korea, a decision he tied to his relationship with Kim.
Why it is on the board
The order to scale back the drills is on this board twice today, and the two entries are not the same story.
In Britain it was read as an alliance being handled abruptly — the BBC's most-read piece is about what Washington did to a treaty partner. In Korea what climbed was the sentence about North Korea: that Kim answered, and that the answer was positive. The complaint about troop numbers and the Iran refusal sits underneath it.
One country read the decision. The other read what it was traded for.
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