US diplomats have made it known that their counterparts in Pyongyang have refused to engage in meaningful discussions

Rising from a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore last month, US president, Donald Trump said :
''Everybody can now feel much safer . . . there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

Since the summit, events have shown that president Trump may have been too optimistic and too soon about the rogue regime. American spies who spoke to The Washington Post said that the North is frantically working to conceal important aspects of its nuclear programme. There are also reports that a missile-engine testing facility that Mr Trump said would be destroyed remains intact.



North Korean officials have returned to their belligerent rhetoric. They have said that the Americans are making a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearisation.”

Recently, Mr Pompeo arranged a meeting between the North Koreans and US military officials to discuss the matter in the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea on July 12. Surprisingly, the North cancelled, after leaving their US counterparts waiting for several hours.

However, one could say that it was a bit naive for anyone to expect that the North Koreans would give up what they had built for decades after just a few meetings.