Politics
Donald Trump’s audacious secret plot to avoid ‘fire and fury’ nuclear war with Kim Jong-un revealed
DONALD Trump made secret overtures to Kim Jong-un in a bid to avoid nuclear war even as they traded insults, a new documentary shows.
In an audacious move, the former President told the North Korean despot he was prepared to meet him, months before they stunned the world by holding a summit in Singapore.
Kim and Trump shaking hands in Singapore[/caption]
The meeting came despite insults[/caption]
Their apparent friendliness seemed improbable when in 2017, Trump said he would rain “fire and fury” on the rogue state and derided Kim as “little rocket man”.
In turn, tyrant said he would “tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire”.
But while the pair were publicly insulting each other the BBC’s ‘Trump Takes on the World’ reveals Trump was making unprecedented overtures to Kim.
In the documentary Jeffrey Feltman, an American UN official, speaks for the first time about his mission to pass on Trump’s offer to meet Kim.
As Trump told the world the US might “have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” he was invited to North Korea by its foreign minister for Ri Yong-ho.
Trump made secret peace overtures to Kim[/caption]
The pair appeared to have struck up a personal chemistry[/caption]
He was finally given the go-ahead for the visit when UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the White House and got Trump’s approval.
“Trump leaned over toward him and said ‘Jeff Feltman should go to Pyongyang, and Jeff Feltman should tell the North Koreans that I’m willing to sit down with Kim Jong-un’,” Feltman said.
The stakes were raised immediately before his visit when North Korea boasted that it had tested a nuclear missile it claimed could hit the United States.
“In more than 30 years in diplomacy, I’ve never felt a heavier responsibility as the risk of war, accidental or intentional, was so strong.”
But when Feltman met the North Koreans they were sceptical about Trump’s offer with Ri saying: “I don’t believe you.”
Kim Jong-un pictured reading a letter from Donald Trump[/caption]
The pair also met on the border of the two Koreas[/caption]
He replied: “I’m not asking you to believe me. What I’m telling you was that I was entrusted with a message from President Trump. I am the carrier of that message.”
The coming months saw relations between North and South Korea thaw a bit as Pyongyang sent a team to the Winter Olympics hosted by its enemy.
When a South Korean delegation of film-makers visited North, they were told Kim was ready to meet Trump and they passed the message on to the White House with the former President accepting on the spot.
Just three months later Trump and Kim shook hands in Singapore with the North Korean leader signalling he was prepared to give up his country’s nukes.
Trump even appeared to be willing to make significant concessions such as cancelling joint military exercises with South Korea, long a source of anger for Pyongyang.
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But despite boasting that his personal chemistry with the North Korean leader, talks broke down in Hanoi in 2019.
The pair had a meeting at the border of the two Koreas and Trump taking a historic step into the North, nuclear talks have ground to a halt.
The North has returned to its customary belligerence and is stepping up its nuclear program, with a new missile unveiled last year.
