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The UN Security Council plans to vote on a draft resolution Monday rejecting U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

As a permanent council member, the U.S. will likely veto the Egyptian-sponsored text.

Reuters says the resolution does not mention the United States or President Donald Trump by name. But the draft expresses “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.”

The draft also appeals to all U.N. members to refrain from setting up an embassy in Jerusalem.

“Any decision and actions which purport to have altered the character, status, or demographic opposition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council,” the draft states, according to Reuters.

There has not been any response so far from the U.S., but its reply will likely come as a veto Monday.

President Trump said his decision last week to recognize Jerusalem and eventually move the U.S. embassy there is “recognition of reality,” saying the city is not only the historic capital of the Jewish people but the capital of modern Israel.

Many European nations and others call Trump’s decision the wrong one at this time and say they have no plans to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Israel says Jerusalem has always been its undivided eternal capital.

But the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, and claim the U.S. announcement wrecks the peace talks.

The United States says the physical location of its embassy has no bearing on talks toward a two-state solution in the Middle East.

 
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President Donald Trump could be on the verge of his greatest legislative victory so far, an overhaul of America’s tax code and a partial repeal of former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, congressional Republicans appear to have the votes to permanently slash corporate taxes, temporarily cut taxes paid by wage and salary earners, and increase America’s national debt by up to $1.5 trillion.
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A report by Refugees International says housing is urgently needed for tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans who lack power and safe water nearly three months after Hurricane Maria damaged their homes.

The nonprofit group recently visited the U.S. territory to survey needs and review the local and federal response to the Category 4 storm. The visit marked the first time the group organized a mission to a U.S. jurisdiction.

Refugees International said in a report shared with The Associated Press that its team was shocked by what it called poor coordination and logistics across the island that have caused delays in aid. It noted the island is still in emergency mode and requires more help.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency did not return a request for comment Sunday.
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As climate change and rising seas threaten the world’s coastal cities, experts say natural systems can offer protection. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports from Florida, where mangroves may help shield shorelines.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump’s campaign has gained access to thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration, according to several people familiar with Trump’s transition organization.

But the investigators did not directly request the records from Trump’s still-existing transition group, Trump for America, and instead obtained them from a separate federal agency that stored the material, according to those familiar with the Trump transition organization.

Transition attorney complains

On Saturday, Kory Langhofer, general counsel for the transition group, sent a letter to two congressional committees arguing that the GSA had improperly provided the transition records to Mueller’s investigators.

In the letter to the Republican chairmen of the House Oversight and the Senate Homeland Security committees, Langhofer contends that the disclosure by GSA was unauthorized, and it considers the documents private and privileged and not government property. 

Langhofer also said that a GSA official appointed by Trump in May had assured the transition in June that any request for records from Mueller’s office would be referred to the transition’s attorneys. According to Langhofer, the assurance was made by then-GSA General Counsel Richard Beckler, who was hospitalized in August and has since died. A copy of the letter was viewed by the AP.

But late Saturday, another GSA official present for the conversation told Buzzfeed News that there was nothing improper about the disclosure of the emails to Mueller’s team. The GSA has provided office space and other aid to presidential transitions in recent years and typically houses electronic transition records in its computer system. 

GSA responds

GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt told Buzzfeed that Beckler didn’t make a commitment to the transition team that requests from law enforcement for materials would be routed through transition lawyers. 

Loewentritt said the transition was informed that by using government devices, the agency wouldn’t hold back records from law enforcement. Transition officials signed agreements that warn them that materials kept on the government servers are subject to monitoring and auditing, he told Buzzfeed, and there’s no expectation of privacy.

The documents were provided to Mueller’s team by the GSA in September in response to requests from the FBI, but the transition wasn’t informed at the time, according to people familiar with the transition organization. Officials with Trump for America learned last Wednesday that GSA officials had turned over the cache of emails to Mueller’s team. 

Among the officials who used transition email accounts was former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a count of making false statements to FBI agents in January and is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. Flynn was fired by Trump in February for misleading senior administration officials about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.​

Emails’ value unclear

It’s unclear how revelatory the email accounts maintained by the GSA will be for Mueller. Several high-level Trump advisers sometimes used other email accounts to communicate about transition issues between Election Day and the inauguration.

Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to comment. Jay Sekulow, an attorney on Trump’s personal legal team, referred questions to the transition group. Neither GSA representatives nor Flynn attorney Robert Kelner were immediately available to respond to AP’s emailed requests for comment.

Officials with Trump for America learned last Wednesday that GSA officials had turned over the massive cache of emails to Mueller’s team. The transition group’s top officials were alarmed because many of the emails that Mueller’s investigators now have are sensitive records ranging from national security discussions about possible Trump international aims to candid assessments of candidates for top government posts, said those familiar with the transition.

Officials with Trump for America had been bracing for months for the prospect that Mueller’s team would demand its emails, but they had been assured that any requests to the GSA would be routed to the transition organization, which claims legal ownership of the records. According to those familiar with the transition group, a top GSA official informed Trump for America last June that any request from Mueller’s office would be referred to the transition.

On Sept. 1, after requests in late August from Mueller’s office, the GSA turned over a flash drive containing tens of thousands of records without informing Trump for America of its move, those familiar with the transition said.

Those records included emails sent and received by 13 senior Trump transition officials.

The media site Axios first reported on the transfer of the emails to Mueller’s team.
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The U.S. Defense Department hailed success on the battlefield by Afghan forces and urged Taliban insurgents to embrace “peace and political legitimacy” through a negotiated settlement with the government in Kabul.

The comments came this week in the Pentagon’s semiannual report to Congress, the first since August 21 when President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and the South Asia region.

The Pentagon said in the report given to Congress on Friday that U.S. and Afghan “sources indicate this fighting season has been more successful than the last.”

“During this reporting period [June 1, 2017, to November 30], the Taliban was unable to threaten any provincial centers, lost control of key districts, and the ANDSF retained control of all major population centers,” it said, referring to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan had said in early summer that the conflict was in a “stalemate” as Afghan security forces struggled to hold back the Taliban and other extremist groups in the country.

The report said the major change in U.S. policy under Trump from “our previous strategy is the shift from a time-based approach to a conditions-based one.

“This strategy is a clear signal of U.S. resolve and a break with the previous administration’s focus on a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan,” it added. 

“Our purpose in Afghanistan remains the same,” the report said. It is “to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven from which terrorist groups can plan and execute attacks on the United States, or our allies, and citizens abroad.”

It said the goal remains the same as in 2001: “a stable, independent Afghanistan at peace with its neighbors.

“The objective of the campaign is to convince the Taliban that they cannot win on the battlefield. The war will end in a comprehensive, Afghan-led political settlement that will include all parties, including the Taliban.

“The Taliban cannot win on the battlefield. They must know that their only path to peace and political legitimacy is through a negotiated settlement with the Afghan government,” it said.

The Pentagon said it has a “willing and able partner” in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

“In conjunction with the new U.S. strategy, he launched with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan a process to create and monitor reforms in four priority sectors: governance, economic development, security, and the peace process.”

It cited Ghani’s “long-term plan to seize the initiative in the fight against insurgent and terrorist forces, further professionalize the ANDSF, modify the ANDSF force structure, and compel the Taliban to seek reconciliation.”

Under its new South Asia Strategy, the Pentagon said the United States has deployed “modest numbers” of additional forces to support the train, advise, and assist and for counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan. 

The United States has about 14,000 uniformed personnel in Afghanistan, an increase of some 3,000 from the previous reporting period, it said.

It cautioned, though, that “our commitment is enduring but not unlimited. Our support is not a blank check.

“As long as the Afghan government continues to show real progress and make real reforms, we will continue to support them as our strategic partners in the fight against international terrorism.”

The United States has been in Afghanistan since 2001, when it led an invasion to drive the Taliban from power after it said the group’s leaders were sheltering al-Qaida militants responsible for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

U.S. forces have remained as part of a NATO-led coalition since, although active combat operations were turned over to Afghan forces in 2014, and international troop levels have fallen from a peak of more than 100,000 to about 16,000.
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Top entertainment and business executives have agreed to found and fund a Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace.

The new group was established at a meeting in Los Angeles convened by Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, Nike Foundation founder and co-chair Maria Eite, talent attorney Nina Shaw and venture capitalist Freada Kapor Klein. It was attended by the heads of nearly every major Hollywood studio.

The establishment of the new group follows the recent avalanche of allegations about sexual misconduct and inequality in the entertainment industry.

“The Commission will not seek just one solution, but a comprehensive strategy to address the complex and inter-related causes of the problems of parity and power,” Kennedy said in a statement.

Anita Hill has been tapped to chair the newly formed group.  She was one of the first people to introduce the public to the concept of sexual harassment when she testified in 1991 against Clarence Thomas at his Senate confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court.

“It is time to end the culture of silence,” Hill said in a statement. “I’ve been at this work for 26 years.  This moment presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to make real change.”

Hill, a Brandeis law professor who has chaired the Human Rights Committee of the International Bar Association, said the commission will focus on issues ranging from “power disparity, equity and fairness, safety, sexual harassment guidelines, education and training, reporting and enforcement, ongoing research and data collection.”

Accounts in the New York Times and the New Yorker covering the allegations from women about predatory sexual behavior on the part of film producer Harvey Weinstein seemed to have opened the door for others to follow suit with allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against a host of other media and entertainment figures that have included Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Louis C.K., Russell Simmons, Kevin Spacey, Garrison Keilor and Brett Ratner. Not spared were political figures, including U.S. Senator Al Franken.

The commission said in a statement it will reconvene early next year to define its mission, scope and priorities.

 
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Ukraine’s foreign minister applauded decisions announced this week by Canada and the European Union (EU) as important in demonstrating the international community’s solidarity with Ukraine and sending a clear message to Russia.

“Look, Russia does not live in a vacuum, sanctions are effective,” Pavlo Klimkin said Friday in an interview with VOA.

EU Council President Donald Tusk announced Thursday that leaders of the organization’s 28 member states were “united on the rollover of economic sanctions on Russia.”

The European Union’s sanctions post constraints for Russia’s access to the coveted EU markets. Initially, they were put in place in 2014 “in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and deliberate destabilization of a neighboring sovereign country.” The EU said the sanctions are kept under “constant review” in order that they continue to contribute toward their stated objectives.

Earlier this week, the Canadian government added Ukraine to its Automatic Firearms Country Control List, thus enabling Canadian individuals and companies to apply for permits to export certain prohibited firearms, weapons and devices to Ukraine.

“Canada and Canadians will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine and support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland declared.

Klimkin said Western nations, “especially Europe, understands more and more that Russia has also been waging hybrid war against European institutions.”

​International community

Against this background, “there definitely will be more pressure, in the sense of targeted sanctions, in the sense of solidarity” coming from the international community, he said.

Ukraine hopes this sense of solidarity will manifest in a United Nations mandate for an international peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, responsible for, in Klimkin’s words, “what is going on and what will be going on in the occupied Donbas,” including a level of security, and free and fair elections.

“We will keep pushing Russia to accept that fundamentally, it’s about Russia out, international component in, there’s no other way around it,” Klimkin told VOA’s Ukrainian service.

In the meantime, he says Russia has been trying to “fix up the situation in Donbas. … Russia has been trying to come up with more provocations, the idea is very clear: to maintain a Russian protectorate on the ground; the whole idea is simply to say: Look, it’s about internal conflicts in Ukraine.’”

The United States has been a strong critic of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

​‘The single most difficult obstacle’

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson voiced the administration’s frustration during his recent trip to Europe.

“President (Donald) Trump, as you know, throughout his campaign was very clear that he views it as very important that Russia and the United States have a better relationship, that it is important that countries as powerful as these two nations are should have a more positive relationship,” Tillerson said in Vienna.

“When one country invades another, that is a difference that is hard to look past or to reconcile,” he said, adding, “We’ve made this clear to Russia from the very beginning that we must address Ukraine. It stands as the single most difficult obstacle to us renormalizing the relationship with Russia, which we badly would like to do.”

Natalie Liu has been a staff reporter and writer at Voice of America since 2005. She currently covers the diplomatic beat. Myroslava Gongadze is VOA’s Ukrainian service chief.
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President Donald Trump frequently casts his first year in office as a string of successes and campaign promises fulfilled. But less than a quarter of Americans think Trump has made good on the pledges he made to voters while running for president, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among Republicans, just half say Trump has kept his promises, which included vows to overhaul his predecessor’s health care law, withdraw the United States from a nuclear accord with Iran and invest millions in new projects to fix the nation’s aging infrastructure. None of those steps have been taken.

“Everything has stalled out,” said Mark Krowski, 37, an independent from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who leans Republican but didn’t vote for Trump last year.

​Worrisome signs

As 2017 comes to a close, the majority of Americans painted a broadly pessimistic view of Trump’s presidency, the nation’s politics and the overall direction of the country. Just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States is heading in the right direction, and 52 percent said the country is worse off since Trump became president, worrisome signs for the White House and Republicans heading into a midterm election year where control of Congress will be at stake.

Along with the 23 percent who think Trump has kept his promises, another 30 percent think he has tried and failed and 45 percent think he hasn’t kept them at all.

In a second AP-NORC poll conducted this month, Trump’s job approval rating sits at just 32 percent, making him the least popular first-year president on record. A quarter of Republicans say they’re among those who disapprove of the president.

​Bit of a bright spot

One relative bright spot for Trump? The improving economy.

With a soaring stock market and unemployment hovering around 4 percent, 40 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy. That’s higher than the 3 in 10 Americans that approved of the president’s handling of health care, foreign policy or taxes.

Still, Trump continues to talk about his presidency with lofty rhetorical flourishes, declaring that his first months in office outshine those of his predecessors. But there’s no doubt that 2017 has been devoid of any significant legislative accomplishments, though Republicans are urgently trying to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s tax system. The package would give generous tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest tax cuts to low- and middle-income families.

“We’re very, very close to a historic legislative victory, the likes of which rarely has this country seen,” Trump said during a meeting with lawmakers earlier this week.

Republicans are banking on the tax overhaul being enough to carry them through next year’s House and Senate contests, elections that will largely be a referendum on Trump’s first two years in office and the GOP’s stewardship as the majority party on Capitol Hill. But with the legislation rushed through Congress and negotiated largely in private, Trump and lawmakers may have more work to do to sell the public on its benefits.

“There’s so much back and forth and so many adjustments being made. It’s just so uncertain,” Edward Hale, a 72-year-old independent, said of the tax legislation.

One thing Hale, a retired federal government employee from Clarion, Pennsylvania, is certain of in the proposal? “It definitely favors Mr. Trump and his wealthy friends,” he said.

The survey results suggest that with or without a tax overhaul, Trump has work to do in convincing the public that his presidency is benefiting them. Just 25 percent of Americans think the country is better off since Trump took office, and only 20 percent say they personally are doing better.

By contrast, an AP-NORC poll conducted a year ago found that Americans were more likely to think the country had become better off over the course of Barack Obama’s presidency than worse off, 46 percent to 33 percent.

Only 9 percent think the country has become more united as a result of Trump’s presidency, while 67 percent think the country is more divided because of Trump. That’s far higher than the 44 percent of Americans who said in a poll one year ago that Obama’s presidency had served to divide the country further.

Even Republicans are more likely to say Trump has divided America than united it, 41 percent to 17 percent.

Notably, the deep-seated pessimism about the president and national politics doesn’t extend to local communities. Overall, about half of Americans said they feel optimistic about their local communities. And that feeling is shared across the political spectrum: 55 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans feel optimistic about the way things are going locally.

Poll details

The AP-NORC polls surveyed 1,444 adults from Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and 1,020 adults from Dec. 7-11 using samples drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for the first survey and plus or minus 4.3 percentage points for the second.

Interviews were conducted online and using landlines and cellphones.
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The United States is expanding the requirements for dozens of countries taking part in the Visa Waiver Program, demanding that the countries check traveler information against U.S. counterterrorism information.

Trump administration officials said Friday that the countries will have to use U.S. information to screen travelers crossing their borders from third countries. Many countries in the program already do that, one administration official said.

The changes also affect VWP countries that have higher rates of citizens overstaying their visas to the U.S.

If more than 2 percent of a country’s visitors stay beyond the expiration of their visa, that country will be required to carry out a public information campaign aimed at reducing those overstay violations, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

In the 2016 fiscal year, four of the VWP countries —Greece, Hungary, Portugal, and San Marino, a wealthy enclave landlocked inside central Italy — had overstay rates higher than 2 percent, according to a DHS report.

The Visa Waiver Program permits citizens of 38 countries, mostly in Europe, to travel to the United States for business or tourism for up to 90 days without a visa.

President Donald Trump has sought to tighten the rules for those seeking to visit or live in the United States in several ways, saying restrictions are necessary for security reasons. The newly-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, attributed the changes to anti-terrorism efforts.

“The United States faces an adaptive and agile enemy, as terrorists continue to explore ways to reach our country and to direct, enable, and inspire attacks against us. … These enhancements will strengthen the program, and they are part of our continued efforts to raise the baseline for homeland security across the board,” Nielsen said, via an emailed DHS statement announcing the modifications.

VWP and terror attacks

In a review of terror attacks on the U.S. from 1975 to 2015, a researcher for the Cato Institute found zero deaths attributable to people in the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program.

The same report found three people out of nearly 400 million visitors under the VWP during that time committed non-lethal acts of terror. 

“That makes the VWP the safest visa category,” the report’s author concluded.

The three incidents involving visitors on VWP were:

• French national Zacarias Moussaoui, who was originally part of the 9/11 conspiracy but was in jail on immigration charges during the attacks;

• British national bomber Richard Reid, who tried but failed to light explosives hidden in his shoe during a transatlantic flight to the United States;

• British national Qaisar Shaffi, who was convicted in 2007 for his role in a foiled terror plot on financial landmarks in New York City.

The VWP changes will apply to all countries in the program.

Material from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
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U.S. President Donald Trump Friday left open the possibility of a presidential pardon on behalf Michael Flynn, who Trump fired after serving just over three weeks as his national security adviser because Flynn lied about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.

“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy in nearby Quantico, Virginia. Trump added: “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: when you look at what’s gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”

Following Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey while he led the agency’s probe into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the the 2016 election, the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller to lead a special counsel probe into the matter.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department disclosed hundreds of text messages between two FBI officials on Mueller’s team of investigators that revealed an anti-Trump bias, prompting some, particularly Republicans, to question the non-partisan nature of the law enforcement agency and its investigation into Russia.

The number two person at the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, defended Mueller Wednesday in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and said he had no reason to dismiss him.

“It’s a shame what happened to the FBI but we’re going to rebuild the FBI,” Trump said. “It’s going to be bigger and better than ever but it is very sad when you look at those documents and how they’ve done that is really, really disgraceful and you have a lot of very angry people who are seeing it.”

After agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, Flynn pleaded guilty on December 1 to one felony count of lying to the FBI last January about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. The conversations occurred weeks before Trump’s inauguration.

Amid mostly Democratic speculation Flynn’s plea might prompt the Trump administration and its allies to attempt to prematurely end Mueller’s probe and curtail several congressional investigations, Trump did not rule out the possibility of pardoning Flynn.

The president has the authority to issue pardons, as he did in August when he pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt charges stemming from the hard-line tactics he used when pursuing undocumented immigrants.

An individual who has been convicted of a federal crime and wants to be pardoned must submit a request to the Justice Department, which assists the president in exercising his authority to pardon. The Justice Department informs pardon seekers to wait at least five years after their conviction date or their release from prison, whichever is later, prior to submitting a pardon application.

Arpaio did not, however, submit an application to the Justice Department and his pardon took effect before he was sentenced.

 
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities are a direct threat to the United States, and Washington “will use all necessary measures” to defend itself against such aggression.

“In the face of such a threat, inaction is unacceptable for any nation,” Tillerson said.

“We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation,” the secretary told a packed chamber of the U.N. Security Council in New York. “But we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea,” he said.

Tillerson spoke at a meeting on North Korea’s proliferation convened by Japan, which holds the rotating Security Council presidency this month.

“The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution,” Tillerson added.

He repeated his openness to talks with the North Koreans, but added the caveat that Pyongyang “must earn its way back to the table.”

“The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved,” Tillerson said. “We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open.”

Said Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kono, who chaired the meeting, “A peaceful solution is desirable, however, it’s North Korea that has consistently rejected such a solution.”

Kono called on the international community to maximize pressure on Pyongyang to change course, and announced that Japan had just imposed asset freezes on 19 additional North Korean entities.

Growing capabilities

“In 2017, the DPRK conducted activities related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs at an alarming and accelerated pace,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told council members. “Its actions show blatant disregard of the will and resolutions of the Security Council and undermines the international norm against nuclear testing,” he said.

On September 3, Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, setting off an underground explosion that registered a 6.1 on the seismic scale.

“The DPRK remains the only country to continue to break the norm against nuclear testing,” Guterres noted, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name.

Throughout the year, the regime has also conducted 20 ballistic missile launches, including the first tests of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), as well as new medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

International nuclear watchdog agency the IAEA has been unable to gain access to North Korea to verify the status of its nuclear program. It uses satellite imagery to help monitor developments.

The U.N. chief called on North Korea to comply with all Security Council resolutions and to allow space for the resumption of dialogue. In a rare appearance at the council, North Korea’s U.N. ambassador was present at the meeting and expected to speak after council members.

“While all concerned seek to avoid an accidental escalation leading to conflict, the risk is being multiplied by misplaced overconfidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communications channels,” Guterres cautioned.

Last week, his top political official, Jeffrey Feltman, traveled to Pyongyang for the first in-depth political exchange of views between U.N. and North Korean officials to take place in that country in almost eight years.

Feltman, the highest-ranking American at the U.N., told reporters earlier this week that he engaged in more than 15 hours of talks over several days with Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Pak Myong Guk. He did not request a meeting with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

“The North Korean interlocutors agreed it was important to prevent war,” Feltman said.
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