PALM BEACH: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he hoped that North Korea would not deliver a missile test as its threatened “Christmas gift” that could reignite global tensions over its nuclear programme.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promised the unidentified “gift” — which could be a missile test — if the US does not make concessions in nuclear talks by the end of the year.
“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“Everybody’s got surprises for me, but let’s see what happens. I handle them as they come along.” “Maybe it’s a nice present, maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test,” the president joked.
Talks on denuclearisation as been largely deadlocked since a second summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi collapsed at the start of this year.
Pyongyang has issued a series of increasingly assertive comments as its time limit approaches.
It has carried out a series of static tests at its Sohae rocket facility this month, after a number of weapons launches in recent weeks.
In another development, the Pentagon is looking into reducing or even withdrawing US troops from West Africa, part of a worldwide redeployment of military forces, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
There are between 6,000 and 7,000 US troops in Africa, mainly in West Africa but also in places like Somalia.
The US presence includes military trainers as well as a recently built $110 million drone base in Niger, the Times said.
A withdrawal would also end US support for French military efforts in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in their war along with local troops against Al Qaeda and IS group.
The Pentagon supports them by providing intelligence, logistical support and aerial refuelling at an annual cost to the Pentagon of some $45 million a year, the Times said.
France has had a major military presence in Mali since 2013, when it launched an intervention against Al Qaeda-linked extremists who had overrun the country’s north.
France then launched a regional counter-terrorism operation and prodded five countries — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Mali and Niger — to set up their own joint force.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is studying a global redeployment of US forces with a decreased emphasis on anti-terrorism operations and a stronger emphasis on confronting China and Russia, the newspaper said.
No decision on the matter was likely before January, it added.
President Donald Trump has often promised to halt the US’s “endless wars.” He has already ordered a significant reduction of US troops deployed in Syria, and is on track to do the same in Afghanistan. — AFP
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