Kim Jong Un open to resuming talks with President Trump with conditions, Taliban rejects bid for U.S. to retake Bagram Air Base, Russia and Ukraine escalate drone attacks.
1. North Korea’s leader ruled out talks with Seoul but signaled he is open to resuming dialogue with President Donald Trump if Washington drops its demand that Pyongyang give up nuclear weapons, state media reported Monday. Kim Jong Un made the comments Sunday during a parliamentary session in Pyongyang, according to the Korean Central News Agency. He recalled his pervious summits with Trump fondly and said the two nations could coexist peacefully. “If the U.S. abandons its absurd obsession on denuclearization, acknowledges the reality and seeks peaceful coexistence with us, there is no reason for us not to talk with the U.S.,” Kim was quoted as saying. The remarks came a month after Trump expressed interest in meeting Kim face to face again. At an Aug. 25 news conference with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Washington, Trump said he got along with Kim and wanted to arrange a meeting at the earliest opportunity.
2. The Taliban government on Sunday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to retake Bagram Air Base, four years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan left the sprawling military facility in the Taliban's hands. Trump on Saturday renewed his call to reestablish a U.S. presence at Bagram, even saying “we’re talking now to Afghanistan” about the matter. He did not offer further details about the purported conversations. Asked by a reporter if he’d consider deploying U.S. troops to take the base, Trump demurred. “We won’t talk about that,” Trump said. “We want it back, and we want it back right away. If they don’t do it, you’re going to find out what I’m going to do.” On Sunday, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected Trump’s assertions and urged the U.S. to adopt a policy of “realism and rationality.”
3. Russia and Ukraine swapped accusations of deadly drone strikes on civilian areas of their countries Monday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy anticipated “a very intense week” of diplomacy at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Security Council was expected discuss the more than three-year war. Zelenskyy has tried to give momentum to a U.S.-led peace effort, offering a ceasefire and a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow has taken issue with some of the proposals, however, and an end to the bloodshed appears no closer. Additionally, international concerns have mounted recently that the fighting could spread beyond Ukraine’s borders as European countries rebuked Russia for what they said were provocations. The incidents have included Russian drones landing on Polish soil and Russian fighter aircraft entering Estonian airspace.
4. Israeli strikes in Gaza City and at a refugee camp killed more than 40 people, including 19 women and children, health officials said Sunday, as several European countries and leading U.S. allies moved to recognize a Palestinian state. Health officials at Shifa Hospital, where most of the bodies were brought, said the dead included 14 people killed in a strike late Saturday which hit a residential block in the southern side of the city. Health staff said a nurse who worked at the hospital was among the dead, along with his wife and three children. Another strike that targeted a group of people in front of a clinic in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least eight Palestinians, according to the Al-Awda Hospital. The dead include four children and two women, the hospital said. Another 22 people were wounded, it said.
5. The Defense Department announced Friday that it had identified the missing remains of a Medal of Honor recipient who was killed in the Philippines in 1945 while a prisoner of war. Capt. Willibald C. Bianchi was awarded the medal posthumously for his actions in defense of the Province of Bataan from Japanese invasion in 1942, during which he was taken prisoner. He was killed when carrier-borne aircraft attacked and sank the Oryoku Maru, a Japanese transport ship in Subic Bay that was holding Bianchi and other POWs. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency officially accounted for Bianchi on Aug. 11, but the public announcement of his identification was made to coincide with National POW/MIA Recognition Day, held each year on the third Friday of September.
- Security