Trump: Kim Jong Un Could Suffer Same Fate as Gadhafi

But that's only if there's no deal, he says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 18, 2018 1:37 AM CDT
Trump: With No Deal, Kim Will Suffer Same Fate as Gadhafi
President Trump speaks during an expanded bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in Washington, Thursday, May 17, 2018.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Trump and national security adviser John Bolton are apparently not on the same page when it comes to the "Libya model"—and the confusion led to what was seen as a stern threat to North Korea Thursday. When asked about Bolton's suggestion that the 2003 Libya model of nuclear disarmament be a template for talks with North Korea, Trump appeared to think he was being asked about the 2011 NATO intervention that led to leader Moammar Gadhafi's death at the hands of rebels, the Guardian reports. "The Libyan model is not a model that we have at all when we are thinking of North Korea. In Libya, we decimated that country," Trump said, adding that the model "could take place if we don't make a deal."

Trump said the deal he was hoping to reach with Kim Jong Un would give him strong protections in return for denuclearization and would be "something where he'd be there, he'd be in his country, he'd be running his country, his country would be very rich," the BBC reports. The president said it would "really be a South Korean model in terms of their industry." Pyongyang, angered by Bolton's remarks on the Libya model for denuclearization, threatened Wednesday to pull out of the planned June 12 Kim-Trump summit if the US kept up its "one-sided" demand for it to give up nuclear weapons. Trump said Thursday that the meeting is still on track, the AP reports. He said that despite the threat to withdraw, officials from both sides are still working on details "as if nothing happened." (More Kim Jong Un stories.)

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