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Trump boasts really good relationship with N Korea, leader Kim

In this file photo taken on June 30, 2019 shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) and US President Donald Trump shaking hands during a meeting on the south side of the Military Demarcation Line. (Photo by AFP)

US President Donald Trump has reportedly proclaimed that the United States has a really good relationship with North Korea and that its leader Kim Jong-un has been “pretty straight” with him.

“Kim Jong-un has been ... pretty straight with me,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday after Pyongyang test-fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, Reuters reported Saturday citing South Korean military authorities.

Trump’s remarks came as North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho announced his country’s readiness for both dialogue and confrontation with the US, warning Washington that continuing unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang will be a" miscalculation."

"If the US is still dreaming of achieving everything with sanctions, we must either let it dream on or shatter that dream," Ri said Friday as quoted by North Korea’s state news agency KCNA.

"We are prepared for both dialogue and confrontation," he further asserted. "If the US tries to confront us with sanctions and not abandon its confrontational posture, it would be a miscalculation."

A day after Trump’s conciliatory statements, however, Pyongyang launched two “unidentified projectiles” toward the ocean off its eastern coast in the latest of a series of launches amid the gridlocked talks with Washington over North Korea’s denuclearization as demanded by the Trump administration.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced the latest test-firing by Pyongyang in a statement, carried by the country’s Yonhap news agency, saying that the launches were carried out on Saturday morning from around Sondok, South Hamgyong Province.

“Our military is tracking the movement in the North in case of additional launches, with firm readiness,” the JCS added, without elaborating on the type of the projectiles fired and whether they were missiles.

Moreover, KCNA further reported on Sunday that the North Korean leader oversaw the test of a "super-large multiple rocket launcher" the previous day.

Photos released by KCNA showed rockets launching from large tubes mounted on the back of an eight-wheel vehicle.


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