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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed a willingness to hold another summit with President Trump this year in his televised New Year’s address and issued a warning that continued U.S. sanctions could block a path to denuclearization, reports the AP.
The backdrop: The country's rhetoric on sanctions was similar last month, when it warned that such measures could lead "relations back to the status of [2017] which was marked by exchanges of fire." Since Trump and Kim’s June summit, denuclearization efforts have seen few concrete successes as Trump administration has moved to sanction North Koreans over issues like cyberattacks, money laundering and "serious human rights abuses and censorship."
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