Bolton defends Trump-Kim meet
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un ended their second summit in Hanoi last week without reaching an agreement
WASHINGTON: U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday that the just-concluded meeting between the top leaders of the United States and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not a “failed summit,” adding U.S. sanctions on the Asian nation would continue.
“I don’t agree at all that it was a failed summit,” he said during an interview with Fox News. He also made a similar statement in a separate interview with the CBC’s “Face the Nation,” saying that “I don’t consider the summit a failure. I consider it a success defined as the president protecting and advancing American national interests.”
“There was extensive preparation for this meeting. Extensive discussions between the president and Kim Jong Un,” he explained. “So the president held firm to his view.
He deepened his relationship with Kim Jong Un. I don’t view it as a failure at all when American national interests are protected.”
Saying that the DPRK has offered “a very limited concession” involving the Yongbyon complex in exchange of U.S. “substantial relief from the sanctions,” Bolton said that President Donald Trump thinks “he gave nothing away” in talks with the DPRK leader.
“That’s - that’s what matters, not my view,” Bolton noted. “Unless you’re prepared to say that it would be better to accept a bad deal than to walk away from no deal, to me that’s a success.”
He added that Trump is “fully prepared to keep talking” with the DPRK side. “He remains optimistic this is possible. The meeting in Hanoi was one such station. So the president is ready to keep talking.”
However, he added that Washington’s “program of maximum pressure will continue” on Pyongyang, which had “brought them to the table in the first place.”
Both sides have expressed willingness after the meeting for further engagement on key issues that have haunted the Peninsula and both sides for decades, such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the establishment of lasting peace, and economic options related to the DPRK side.
In response to the U.S. accusation that the DPRK had asked too much in terms of sanction lifting in the meeting, Ri Yong Ho, DPRK’s foreign minister, said on March 1 that his nation had only proposed that the United States partially remove its sanctions impeding the livelihood of the DPRK people.