News / Foreign Policy

Besides nukes, North Korea must give up missiles if it wants détente: Bolton

Sunday, 13 May 2018 3:47 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 13 May 2018 4:36 PM ]

US National Security Advisor John Bolton (Photo by AFP)

US National Security Adviser John Bolton says North Korea must give up both its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs if it wants the détente with Washington to work.

Bolton said Sunday that denuclearization was going to be the main topic at President Donald Trump’s June 12 meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but Kim must do more than that if he wants his country to become “a normal nation.”

“Well I think the denuclearization is absolutely at the core of it and it means not just the nuclear weapons, North Korea’s previously agreed, several times in fact to give up its uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities,” the former US envoy to the UN told ABC News.

“We’ve got the ballistic missile issues on the table, we’ve got to look at chemical and biological weapons,” he added.

As part of the process, Bolton said Pyongyang was required to allow all of its nuclear and missile development sites to be inspected.

The nuclear weapons will be then taken to Oakridge, Tennessee, well the US will oversee their destruction, Bolton said.

He noted that while the US might get help from other allies to carry out the job there was no need for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to intervene “because that’s not really in the IAEA’s remit.”

PressTV-Trump thanks N Korea over nuclear site

US President Donald Trump thanks North Korea for showing willingness to scrap a nuclear site.

He said until North Korea begins the work on denuclearization the Trump administration was not going to change its current strategy, which is based on economic pressure and increasing military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang is warming up to the idea of denuclearization and has already announced that it would dismantle a major nuclear test site by the end of May.

The Trump-Kim summit would mark the first such meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader in history.

The two leaders spent much of last year trading threats of nuclear destruction.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir