SEOUL/WASHINGTON: White House national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday he believed the bulk of North Korea’s weapons programmes could be dismantled within a year, as the United States and North Korea resumed working-level talks.
Bolton told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Washington has devised a programme to dismantle North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological and nuclear — and ballistic missile programmes in a year, if there is full cooperation and disclosure from Pyongyang.
“If they have the strategic decision already made to do that and they’re cooperative, we can move very quickly,” he said. “Physically we would be able to dismantle the overwhelming bulk of their programmes within a year.”
He said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will likely discuss that proposal with the North Koreans soon. The Financial Times reported that Pompeo was due to visit North Korea this week but the State Department has not confirmed any travel plans.
South Korea media reported on Sunday that Sung Kim, the US Ambassador to the Philippines, met with North Korean officials on Sunday at the border village of Panmunjom within the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas to coordinate an agenda for Pompeo’s next visit to North Korea.
Kim’s delegation delivered Pompeo’s letter to Kim Yong Chol, a top Pyongyang official who met Pompeo and US President Donald Trump ahead of last month’s historic summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, Yonhap news agency said, citing an unnamed diplomatic source.
Some experts disputed Bolton’s optimistic time frame for decommissioning the North’s weapons.
“It would be physically possible to dismantle the bulk of North Korea’s programmes within a year,” said Thomas Countryman, the State Department’s top arms control officer under president Barack Obama.
“I do not believe it would be possible to verify full dismantlement within a year, nor have I yet seen evidence of a firm DPRK decision to undertake full dismantlement.”
North Korea is completing a major expansion of a key missile-manufacturing plant, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing researchers who have examined new satellite imagery from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. — Reuters
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