Los Angeles Times - 01.08.2019

LATIMES.COM THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019A

THE WORLD

SEOUL — North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un called
his recent weapons tests an
important advance for the
country’s arsenal and a
demonstration of power de-
signed to “send a solemn
warning” to South Korea.
President Trump called
the weapons in question
“very standard missiles,”
ones “many people have.”
The difference in those
characterizations — with
Kim playing up the tests,
and Trump playing them
down — raises the question
of just how much the U.S. is
willing to tolerate to keep
alive the hope of resuming
nuclear talks between the
two countries after a
months-long impasse.
The firing of a large-cali-
ber guided rocket system on
Wednesday was North Ko-
rea’s second weapons test in
less than a week. Just six
days earlier, it launched two
short-range ballistic mis-
siles into the sea off its east
coast.
Two days before that,
North Korean state media
showed off a submarine that
the South Korean military
said was probably designed
to carry three ballistic mis-
siles capable of being
launched from the ocean.
It has been just a month
since Kim and Trump shook
hands at an impromptu
meeting in the demilitarized
zone between the two Ko-
reas and, according to
Trump, agreed to get work-
ing-level talks going in a
matter of weeks.
The nuclear negotiations
have been on ice since talks
fell apart at Trump and
Kim’s second meeting in
February. At the time, the
two sides said they were too
far apart when it came to

North Korea’s demands for

removal of economic sanc-

tions and the parts of its nu-

clear program it was willing

to put on the table.

U.S. Secretary of State

Michael R. Pompeo told re-

porters this week that North

Korea has yet to appoint a

negotiator to head up re-

newed talks. Its previous top

envoy, who laid the ground-

work for the Vietnam sum-

mit in February, has report-

edly fallen out of favor over

that meeting’s failure.

North Korea resumed

weapons testing a few

months after Kim returned

empty-handed from his

meeting with Trump in

Hanoi, breaking an 18-

month freeze. At the same

time, North Korea has

stayed away from nuclear

detonations or testing of in-

tercontinental ballistic mis-

siles, as it had done in 2017.

Trump and his staff, in-

cluding Pompeo and na-

tional security advisor John

Bolton, have repeatedly em-

phasized that Kim has not

broken his pledge to refrain

from nuclear and interconti-

nental ballistic missile test-

ing. The lower-level provoca-

tions, Pompeo said in inter-

views last week, were under-

standable posturing ahead

of resuming talks.

“Look, everybody tries to

get ready for negotiations

and create leverage, and cre-

ate risk for the other side,”

he told Bloomberg TV.

“President Trump has been

incredibly consistent here.

We want diplomacy to

work.”

Shin Beom-chul, director

of the Center for Security

and Unification at the Seoul-

based Asan Institute for Pol-

icy Studies, said North Ko-

rea was upping the ante with

the United States, with the

expectation that as the U.S.

presidential race heats up in

coming months, Trump will

feel pressure to produce re-

sults from his personal di-

plomacy with Kim.

He said that Trump’s de-

cision to meet with Kim in

June, after missile tests the

previous month, seemed to

signal that provocation

brings the U.S. to the negoti-

ating table.

As for remarks by Trump

and Pompeo downplaying

the risk of short-range mis-

siles, Shin said that “from

North Korea’s perspective,

it’s given them a free pass to

continue firing missiles.”

In statements about its

weapons tests, North Korea

has also lambasted upcom-

ing joint military exercises

between South Korea and

the U.S. that are expected to

take place in August.

Kim warned South Korea

that the exercises were a

“suicidal act” and that the

South Korean president

should not make the “mis-

take of ignoring the warning

from Pyongyang,” according

a Foreign Ministry state-

ment.

Bolton said after Pyong-

yang’s latest round of testing

this week that the ball was in

North Korea’s court.

“You have to ask when

the real diplomacy is going

to begin, when the working-

level discussions on denucle-

arization will begin,” he told

Fox Business. “We’re still

waiting to hear from North

Korea.”

North Korea’s weapons tests continue

Trump’s mild response

raises questions about

U.S. willingness to

keep alive hope of

reviving nuclear talks.

By Victoria Kim

AT A rail station in Seoul, commuters watch news coverage of North Korea’s weapons test on Wednesday. President Trump downplayed

the firing of a large-caliber guided rocket system even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the test a warning to South Korea.

Ahn Young-joonAssociated Press

MOSCOW — The Rus-

sian military on Wednesday

joined efforts to fight forest

fires that have engulfed

nearly 11,600 square miles of

territory in Siberia and the

Russian Far East — an area

the size of Belgium.

The move, which in-

cludes sending military

transport planes and heli-

copters that can drop water

on fires, came after an order

from Russian President

Vladimir Putin.

Russian authorities have

declared a state of emer-

gency in five areas, including

all of the Irkutsk and Kras-

noyarsk regions, which lie

north of Mongolia. Siberia’s

Krasnoyarsk region, which

stretches all the way to the

Kara Sea and the Arctic

Ocean, can be seen blank-

eted by smoke in satellite

photos from NASA and Eu-

rope’s Copernicus Atmos-

phere Monitoring Service.

No injuries or evacu-

ations have been reported so

far from the fires, many of

which appear to have been

started by lightning strikes

in “dry thunderstorms” in

which precipitation dis-

perses before reaching the

ground.

But the fires, which were

being spread by strong

winds, have produced heavy

smoke that has clogged the

air in several cities, includ-

ing Novosibirsk, Russia’s

third-largest city with a

population of 1.6 million in

southwestern Siberia.

Prime Minister Dmitry

Medvedev visited the city of

Krasnoyarsk on Wednesday

and gave a glum assessment

of the forest fires.

“The situation is difficult.

Many forests are burning,

smog and smoke are ob-

served over many populated

areas. The prognosis at this

moment is not happy,” he

said.

Russia’s agency for aerial

forest protection, Aviale-

sookhrana, said that about

2,700 firefighters were work-

ing to put out the blazes but

that about 10,800 square

miles of the fires were in diffi-

cult-to-reach areas. Those

forest fires, it said, were not

being fought because the

costs and risks of doing so

were greater than the poten-

tial damage the fires could

cause to unpopulated areas.

Russia’s vast stretches of

forest have often been hit by

widespread fires in the sum-

mer months. This year, how-

ever, the world experienced

the warmest June on record.

“It’s not for the first time

that we’re having this catas-

trophe in our country,” said

Mikhail Kreindlin, a Green-

peace activist in Moscow.

“Why there is so much atten-

tion to it this year is because

the smoke from the fires has

reached the cities, with ac-

tivists who [have] started to

raise the issue.”

Protests demanding ac-

tion against the heavy

smoke from the fires were

planned for Thursday in

Moscow outside the Ecology

Ministry. Greenpeace also

planned to submit a petition

with more than 200,000 sig-

natures to the Russian gov-

ernment urging a better re-

sponse to wildfires and more

preventive action.

Putin sends in

military to help

battle wildfires

Russia has declared a

state of emergency in

Siberia and Far East as

flames engulf forests.

associated press

LONDON — New British
Prime Minister Boris John-
son on Wednesday finished
his rocky debut tour of the
U.K. in Northern Ireland,
where he faces a doubly diffi-
cult challenge of restoring
the collapsed Belfast gov-
ernment and finding a solu-
tion for the Irish border after
Brexit.
Since he took office a
week ago, Johnson has been
touring England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland,
but it has not been a tri-
umphal parade. After facing
protests and political oppo-
sition in Scotland and Wales,
Johnson met Wednesday
with the leaders of Northern
Ireland’s five main political
parties in hopes of kick-
starting efforts to restore
the suspended Belfast ad-
ministration.
Northern Ireland’s 1.
million people have been
without a functioning ad-
ministration for 2^1 ⁄ 2 years,
since the Catholic-Protes-
tant power-sharing govern-
ment collapsed over a
botched green-energy proj-
ect. The rift soon widened
over broader cultural and
political issues separating
Northern Ireland’s British
unionists and Irish national-
ists.
Johnson said he would
“do everything I can to help
that get up and running
again, because I think that’s
profoundly in the interests of
people here, of all the citi-
zens here in Northern Ire-
land.”
But a breakthrough did
not look imminent. Oppo-
nents say Johnson can’t play
a constructive role in North-
ern Ireland because his Con-

servative government relies

on support from the Demo-

cratic Unionist Party, the

largest of Northern Ireland’s

pro-British parties. Without

the votes of the DUP’s 10 law-

makers in London, John-

son’s minority government

would collapse.

Critics say that gives the

pro-Brexit DUP an over-

sized influence with the

British government, unset-

tling the delicate balance of

power in Northern Ireland.

Mary Lou McDonald,

leader of the Irish national-

ist party Sinn Fein, accused

Johnson of being the DUP’s

“gofer.”

“He tells us he will act

with absolute impartiality.

We have told him that no-

body believes that,” she said.

Britain’s 2016 vote to leave

the European Union has

strained the bonds among

the four nations that make

up the United Kingdom. A

majority of voters in Eng-

land and Wales backed leav-

ing in the referendum, while

those in Scotland and

Northern Ireland voted to

remain.

Scotland’s nationalist

government wants to hold a

vote on independence from

the U.K. if Scotland is

dragged out of the EU

against its will. Similarly, na-

tionalists in Northern Ire-

land argue there should be a

referendum on unification

with Ireland if there is a

damaging no-deal Brexit.

Johnson insists the U.K.

will leave the EU on the

scheduled date of Oct. 31,

with or without a divorce

deal. Economists say a no-

deal Brexit would be eco-

nomically damaging for the

whole U.K. and politically

destabilizing for Northern

Ireland, the only part of the

U.K. to share a land border

with the bloc.

The British government

said Wednesday that it is

setting aside more than $2.

billion to prepare for leaving

the EU. Treasury chief Sajid

Javid said the additional

Brexit funds would go to hir-

ing 500 border officers,

stockpiling essential medi-

cines and other areas such

as public information.

The government plans to

spend $1.3 billion immedi-

ately. That comes on top of

billions spent before Brit-

ain’s originally scheduled

departure date of March 29.

DUP leader Arlene Fos-

ter played down the risk of a

no-deal Brexit, saying John-

son is “focused on finding a

deal and we’re here to help

him find that deal.”

She said Brexit must be

carried out “in a way that

does no damage either to the

U.K., the Republic of Ireland

— our neighbors — or the

wider European Union.”

A divorce agreement be-

tween the U.K. and the EU

has foundered largely be-

cause of the complex issue of

the 300-mile border between

Northern Ireland and EU

member Ireland. An invisi-

ble border is key to the re-

gional economy and under-

pins the peace process that

ended decades of sectarian

strife in Northern Ireland.

Both Britain and the EU

have promised there will be

no hard border after Brexit,

but they disagree about how

to avoid it.

The EU and Johnson’s

predecessor, Theresa May,

came up with a solution

known as the backstop — an

insurance policy to guaran-

tee an open border if no

other solution can be found.

But Brexit-backers loathe

the backstop because it

locks Britain into EU trade

rules to avoid customs

checks, something they say

will stop the U.K. from strik-

ing new trade deals.

Johnson is refusing to

hold new talks with EU lead-

ers unless they agree to

scrap the backstop and sent

Europe advisor David Frost

to Brussels on Wednesday to

deliver that message.

Johnson’s office said

Frost would tell EU officials

that “we will work energet-

ically for a deal but the back-

stop must be abolished. If we

are not able to reach an

agreement, then we will, of

course, have to leave the EU

without a deal.”

The bloc is equally ada-

mant that the Brexit deal

won’t be reopened and the

backstop must stay.

The stalemate has sent

the pound plunging to its

lowest levels in more than

two years, as economists

warn a no-deal Brexit would

disrupt trade and send Brit-

ain into a deep recession.

The currency was trading

around $1.22 Wednesday, up

slightly from a day earlier

but still its lowest level since

March 2017.

Business confidence has

also been battered. Britain’s

auto trade body said

Wednesday that investment

in the industry in effect

stopped in the first half of

this year amid no-deal fears.

Protesters greeted John-

son in Northern Ireland, in-

cluding border residents,

steelworkers at a Belfast

shipyard facing closure and

anti-Brexit demonstrators.

New prime minister

wraps up U.K. tour

Boris Johnson faces

protests and Brexit

and other challenges

in Northern Ireland.

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, visits

Matt Shervington-Jones’ farm operation in Wales.

Adrian DennisPool Photo

associated press