Washington: United States National Security advisor John Bolton on Sunday confirmed that his country had pledged to pay North Korea for US-student Otto Warmbier’s release but never paid the USD 2 million Pyongyang demanded.
“Absolutely not. And I think that is the key point. The president has been very successful in getting 20-plus hostages released from imprisonment around the world and has not paid anything for any of them,” The Hill quoted Bolton as saying.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia student visiting North Korea, was imprisoned in January 2016 and detained by the reclusive state while on a college trip there in 2016.
Bolton added, however, that Joseph Yun, a State Department envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier from North Korea in 2017, signed a pledge to pay the country for Warmbier’s release.
“That is what I am told, yes,” Bolton said.
United States President Donald Trump also denied that the US paid any money to North Korea for Wambier.
This comes after reports of North Korea slapping a USD two million medical bills on the United States for Warmbier emerged in American news outlets on Thursday.
The Washington Post alleged that the US had signed a pledge to pay the bill before releasing the US student in 2017, after holding him captive for almost a year. Warmbier, who was in a vegetative state, died just six days after returning home to the US.
After the second summit with the North Korean leader in Vietnam in February, Trump said that he does not hold Kim responsible for Warmbier’s death.
The American student suffered severe brain damage during his captivity. The Trump administration placed intense pressure on Pyongyang to release Warmbier when they learned of his condition.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]