SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
US ready to offer North Korea security assurances: Pompeo
Washington, May 13 (AFP) May 13, 2018
The United States is prepared to offer North Korea security assurances if it makes the strategic choice to give up its nuclear weapons, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

Pompeo cast US President Donald Trump's June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un as a test of the North Korean leader's commitment to change his country's direction.

The US price for normalization -- complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization -- is one Pyongyang has never before been willing to pay, regarding nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of the regime's survival.

On Saturday, North Korea said it will destroy its nuclear test site later this month -- a gesture Trump quickly hailed as "very smart and gracious."

Pompeo, who has met twice with the North Korean leader to discuss the summit, said he was "convinced" Kim shared US goals.

"We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure," Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday. "This has been the trade-off that has been pending for 25 years. No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible."

"Our eyes are wide open with respect to the risks, but it is our fervent hope that Chairman Kim wants to make a strategic change," he said.

If Kim makes such a change, he said, "President Trump is prepared to assure that there's going to be a successful transition."

But in a separate television interview, US National Security Advisor John Bolton cautioned that denuclearization has to be accomplished "before the benefits start to flow."

"I think the implementation of the decision means getting rid of the nuclear weapons. Dismantling them. Taking them to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It means getting rid of the uranium facility," he said on ABC's "This Week."

"North Korea has a very extensive program. It won't be easy to do," he said. "They'll have to reveal all locations. Open inspections. The deconstruction of the nuclear weapons, I think, will be by the United States with perhaps assistance from others."

Bolton said the US side also will discuss not just North Korea's nuclear and missile programs but its chemical and biological weapons arsenal as well.

"I don't think the president has stars in his eyes," Bolton said. "What we need to see from Kim Jong Un is that he and the entire North Korean regime have made a strategic decision that they'll be better off without weapons of mass destruction."

The summit will give Trump an early chance "to size Kim Jong Un up and see if the commitment is real," he said.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Robotic welding project to prepare UK for in orbit repairs
OroraTech expands GENA satellite platform with orbital testbed for scientific payloads
ONE Bow River backs Odyssey Space Research growth in flight software and mission engineering

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Thorium plated steel points to smaller nuclear clocks
Solar ghost particles seen flipping carbon atoms in underground detector
Overview Energy debuts airborne power beaming milestone for space based solar power

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Autonomous DARPA project to expand satellite surveillance network by BAE Systems
IAEA calls for repair work on Chernobyl sarcophagus
Momentus joins US Space Force SHIELD contract vehicle

24/7 News Coverage
UAlbany Atmospheric Scientist Proposes Innovative Method to Reduce Aviation's Climate Impact
Digital twin successfully launched and deployed into space
Robots that spare warehouse workers the heavy lifting



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.