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White House National Security Advisor John Bolton
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Bolton describes summit as “success” on US media to counter domestic criticism
US President Donald Trump delivered a document to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un conveying demands for extensive denuclearization ranging from nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to biological and chemical weapons during the two leaders’ recent second summit in Hanoi, it has been confirmed. Based on this standard of denuclearization, Trump reportedly pressed for Kim to agree to a “big deal” that promised dazzling economic development for North Korea in exchange. The developments were shared on the US networks CBS, Fox News, and CNN on Mar. 3 by White House National Security Council adviser John Bolton. Bolton also described the summit as a “success,” claiming that Trump had “placed America’s interests first” by choosing no deal over a “bad deal,” and focused on countering criticisms in the wake of the summit’s failure to produce an agreement. The behind-the-scenes images from the two leaders’ summit as related by Bolton in an interview with Fox News Sunday were relatively simple. “The president [Trump] kept saying take what he called the big deal – denuclearization, make a decision, give up the nuclear chemical and biological weapons, give up the ballistic missiles,” he recalled. Bolton explained that the document given to Kim “laid out what we [the US] expected there” in Korean and English. Trump went on to say that North Korea could “have an extraordinary economic future,” but Kim “walked away from it,” Bolton said. Appearing on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Bolton raised the concept of denuclearization that also included North Korea’s ballistic missile and biological and chemical weapon programs. “The counter offer has been there [. . .] from the very first summit back in Singapore [. . .] if North Korea commits to complete denuclearization,” he said. In response, what North Korea brought to the table was a “very limited concession [. . .] involving the Yongbyon complex which includes an aging nuclear reactor and some percentage of their uranium enrichment plutonium reprocessing capabilities,” he added. According to Bolton, North Korea asked for “substantial relief from the sanctions” in exchange. “[O]ne thing President Trump has said beginning in the 2016 campaign is that he's not going to make the mistakes of prior administrations and get into this action for action kind of arrangement which benefits the North Koreans,” he stressed. The step-by-step, simultaneous approach is the negotiation approach that Pyongyang has been demanding, while the leader of the US’ working-level negotiations with the North, State Department Special Representative for North Korea, officially stated a “simultaneously and in parallel” approach to North Korea in a speech at Stanford University late last month. Indicates further tightening of sanctions Regarding the possibility for future negotiations with Pyongyang, Bolton said North Korea would need time to “re-evaluate what happened.” He also stressed that Washington would carry on with its past “maximum pressure” operations. “We'll look at continuing the economic sanctions against North Korea which brought them to the table in the first place,” he said. “We were looking at ways to tighten it up – to stop, for example, the ship-to-ship transfers that the North Koreans are using to evade the sanctions, to talk to other countries to make sure they tighten up on North Korea,” he explained. But when asked whether the window for diplomacy was closing or if there was a deadline, Bolton replied that there was no time limit and that Trump had “kept the door open.” During the CBS interview, Bolton also left open the possibility for a third summit, saying Trump was “fully prepared to keep negotiating at lower levels or to speak to Kim Jong Un again when it's appropriate.” When asked in his interview with CNN whether the Trump administration was certain about not supporting regime change in North Korea, Bolton replied only that the administration’s position was that it wants North Korea’s denuclearization and is pursuing that aim. He also bristled when pressed by the hosts for his own opinion rather than Trump’s, stressing that he was the National Security Advisor and not the “national security decision-maker.” By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
