National Security Adviser John Bolton on Tuesday stated that North Korea made no progress in denuclearization.
“The United States has lived up to the Singapore declaration,” Bolton said in an interview on Fox News, referring to the document Trump and Kim signed at the Singapore summit in June. “It’s just North Korea that has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize.”
The White House national security adviser said that Washington doesn’t plan on lifting the sanctions until North Korea honors their part of the agreement.
“The idea that we’re going to relax the sanctions just on North Korea’s say-so, I think, is something that just isn’t under consideration,” Bolton said. “We’re going to continue to apply maximum pressure to North Korea until they denuclearize, just as we are to Iran. The President feels very strongly about it.”
Bolton’s statement is the opposite of Trump’s reassuring that Kim works towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea,” Trump wrote on Twitter shortly after the Singapore summit. “Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”
The only action North Korea took was the dismantlement of a nuclear-launch site and returning the remains of more than 50 U.S. troops who served in the Korean War.
Last week White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the President “won’t be completely satisfied until all of Korea has been denuclearized.”
“We’re going to continue moving forward,” she added.
“We’ve seen steps of progress and continued cooperation. We’re incredibly grateful and thankful for the remains of the service members that were returned yesterday. And we’re going to continue to work with North Korea.”
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