Blumenthal warns: Meeting with North Korea seems ‘to validate totalitarian regime’

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned on Friday that the impending talks between the U.S. and North Korea seem “to validate the totalitarian regime.”

“Diplomacy is always a positive,” Blumenthal said on CNN’s “New Day,” after a South Korean official announced Thursday that Trump had accepted an offer by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet for talks.

“But there is a lot of reason for skepticism,” warned the senator, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noting that there has been “no sign” North Korea has any intention of reducing its nuclear arsenal. 

{mosads}

“So we need to reduce the risks of going to these talks which seem to validate this totalitarian regime,” he said. 

The meeting, which Trump plans to have by May, comes after months of tough talk and posturing by the president against Kim, who has greatly increased the frequency of the nation’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests

A former national security adviser to President Obama suggested Trump accepted Kim’s offer out of desperation to make a deal or for a publicity stunt. 

Blumenthal said that the U.S. could take steps to prepare for the nuclear summit, such as fortifying diplomatic ties with China and sustaining the steep economic sanctions that he said forced North Korea to the table. 

The senator said he only gave Trump credit for “yielding to the intense pressure” surrounding the issue of denuclearization.