Bolton signals skepticism over North Korea pledge
WASHINGTON — Top aides to President Trump signaled skepticism Sunday about North Korea’s reported pledge to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for conditions including an American promise not to attack it militarily.
But as preparations moved ahead for a face-to-face encounter between Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, the officials insisted that Trump’s unconventional diplomacy had yielded greater achievements than his predecessors could claim in reining in the North’s rogue nuclear and ballistics program.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said Kim’s seemingly conciliatory rhetoric was not being accepted at face value and indicated that no easing of sanctions against North Korea would take place until there was a commitment to full denuclearization.
Crediting American pressure with nudging North Korea along, Bolton said the Trump administration would demand evidence that Kim’s pledges were “real and not just rhetoric.”
“We’ve heard this before,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding that “the North Korean propaganda playbook is an infinitely rich resource.”
The comments came after South Korean officials were quoted as asserting Sunday that Kim had dangled the prospect of giving up his nuclear weapons when he met last week with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in in the truce village of Panmunjom.
Kim also offered to allow in experts and journalists from the United States and South Korea to witness the shutdown next month of the North’s only known nuclear testing site, according to Yoon Young-chan, a South Korean presidential spokesman cited by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.