SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Friday said that two years of diplomacy with President Trump had “faded away into a dark nightmare,” and vowed to increase its nuclear weapons capabilities. “Even a slim ray of optimism for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula has faded away into a dark nightmare,” the country’s foreign minister, Ri Son-gwon, said in a statement on Friday marking the second anniversary of a historic summit meeting between Mr. Trump and the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un. When Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump met in Singapore on June 12, 2018, they signed a vaguely worded agreement to improve ties between their nations and work toward “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”But bilateral ties have since deteriorated, especially after the two leaders’ second meeting, held in Vietnam in February 2019, ended without agreement on how to dismantle the North’s nuclear weapons program and when to ease sanctions against the North.

Source: New York Times June 12, 2020 00:33 UTC