US President Donald Trump contradicts his intelligence agencies and said there is “a decent chance of denuclearization,” with North Korea.
US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday that North Korea “will seek to retain its weapons of mass destruction (WMD)” and see “unlikely” that it could get rid of its nuclear weapons, despite ongoing negotiations between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons” announced the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, to the Senate.
On the other hand, Donald Trump, who often ignores his strategic intelligence entities, wrote on Twitter that “North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of denuclearization”.
…Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019
The president marked that “Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen.”
“Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!” he added.
During his address to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Director emphasized that “North Korean leaders “view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
This warning comes shortly after the White House announced that Trump and Kim will celebrate their second summit near the end of February, although it is still unknown where the meeting will take place.
After the historic summit in Singapore in 2018, in which the US and North Korea agreed to work for the denuclearization of the Asian country in exchange for Washington agreement to guarantee Pyongyang government survival, the dialogue has barely shown any progress, given the lack of directions for disarmament.
The US has demanded more solid actions from North Korea to demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization, while the North Korean authorities are calling for the lifting of sanctions and the signing of a peace treaty between the two Koreas.
Meanwhile, the North Korea representation in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva pointed out that it will not manufacture or test more nuclear weapons, and stressed that if the United States responds to these efforts, set up since 2018; there will be rapid development in the bilateral relations.
North Korean ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Han Tae-song said in his speech at the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva that North Korea will continue its responsibilities by establishing “a permanent and durable peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula”.
Han highlighted the important progress made in the Korean peninsula last year, crystallized in three inter-Korean summits and in the historic meeting of the North Korea and the US leaders (Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump) in Singapore. Pyongyang hopes to continue counting on the international community support for the following steps.
Translated by: José Espinoza
