The handshake
The handshake
President Trump takes one after another stupid, sometimes downright dangerous decisions. The United States has torn up the Iran deal, moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and removed its signature from the Paris climate agreement. In addition, Trump has sent more soldiers to the endless war in Afghanistan and asked the Netherlands to do the same. Little by little these moves are not making the world safer. Quite the opposite.
Sadet Karabalut
Strong criticism has quite rightly been levelled at the American president, including by myself, for example here. But if he does something good, we must give the devil his due.
Something good, such as the meeting between Trump and North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Who would have thought that these two gentlemen, ten months after the US threat to destroy North Korea completely, ten months on from North Korea's firing of a rocket over Japan, would be shaking each other's hands?
The meeting resulted in a number of agreements. In exchange for security guarantees, Kim will work on complete demilitarisation of the Korean peninsula. Trump has at the same time invited the North Korean leader to the US, an invitation eagerly accepted by Kim.
This process must, of course, be followed critically. Both North Korea and the United States have shown themselves, at various times in the past, to be unreliable partners in this chronic conflict, as a result of which previous negotiations have collapsed. For now, however, it seems that a nuclear catastrophe has been avoided, and that is an out-and-out gain.
Sadet Karabulut is a Member of Parliament for the SP and the party's parliamentary spokeswoman on foreign affairs.