North Korea witness to US nuclear double standards: Former US diplomat

“North Korea sees what has happened to Iran [in regard to the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement] and how Iran complied with this [nuclear deal], yet it’s still subject to more and more sanctions; and at the same time, North Korea sees Israel with no controls and no questions about its nuclear weapons of mass destruction,” Michael Springman said.

US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the Iran deal on May 8. Under that deal, negotiated by Trump’s predecessor, president Barack Obama, Iran agreed to certain restrictions on its nuclear program in return for the termination of US and international sanctions imposed on it.

Iran did not have nuclear weapons and said it never sought to obtain them; yet, it agreed to a range of measures, including unprecedented international monitoring of its nuclear program, to have the sanctions terminated. Trump’s pullout from the deal entailed the re-imposition of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran and has caused difficulties for other parties still committed to the deal to uphold their ends of the bargain.

The Trump administration is now involved in nuclear talks with North Korea, which is in possession of a full military nuclear program and an unknown number of nuclear warheads.

Despite a much-publicized summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on June 12, follow-on diplomacy now seems to have hit a wall.