Kerry: Relationship Between US, North Korea Unchanged
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State Dept photo(WASHINGTON) — In case you were wondering, Secretary of State John Kerry isn’t planning on traveling to North Korea anytime soon.
Responding to a reporter Thursday who asked whether he would pay North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un a visit, Kerry joked, “Do you know something about an invitation I don’t?”
North Korea has reportedly closed its borders to foreign travelers due to Ebola concerns. Kerry didn’t seem to know whether that was true or not when asked whether that news could affect the two Americans still trapped in North Korea.
“I can’t tell you how their decision will or won’t affect anything with respect to the other Americans who are being held,” he said during an availability with the South Korean foreign minister.
On American Jeffrey Fowle, Kerry said the U.S. is “delighted” that North Korea released him but stressed that the U.S. is still “deeply concerned” about the other two.
Kerry also mentioned the agreement between the U.S. and South Korea — reached Thursday — that would delay the transfer of wartime control of the Korean military back to Seoul until the South is better equipped to handle threats from the North.
Currently, if South Korea became involved in a war, the United States would have to command combined U.S.-Korean forces. That’s an arrangement that goes back to the Korean War.
The transfer of “operational control” was supposed to happen first in 2012, then in 2015. Now, there’s no set date — just whenever South Korea achieves “critical defensive capabilities against an intensifying North Korean threat,” per statements from the U.S. and South Korea.
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