National security adviser John Bolton said Sunday that North Korea has not yet provided the U.S. with details on the scope of its nuclear arsenal amid news reports that indicate North Korea is attempting to continue its nuclear program.
Bolton appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” where he declined to address a Washington Post report that said U.S. officials believe North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons. The report contradicts President Trump’s claim that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat after his meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore last month.
“We’re going to try and proceed to implement what the two leaders agreed to in Singapore, but rather than have a series of reports — things are going better things are not going well, they are concealing this, they’re not concealing that — really it doesn’t serve the purpose of advancing the negotiations,” Bolton said Sunday.
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“But there’s not any … starry eyed feeling among the group doing this that we’re well, well aware of what the North Koreans have done in the past,” he added.
Bolton said the U.S. has a program in the works that would allow for North Korea’s nuclear program to be dismantled within a year. However, Bolton said the U.S. does not yet have a full accounting of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
“What our experts have devised is a program that, with North Korean cooperation, with full disclosure of all of their chemical and biological nuclear programs ballistic missile sites … we would be able to dismantle the overwhelming bulk of their programs within a year,” Bolton said.
The Washington Post report comes on the heels of an NBC News report Friday that found U.S. officials believe North Korea has increased fuel production for nuclear missiles at several secret research facilities.
Trump and Kim signed an agreement in Singapore that said North Korea would abandon its nuclear program, but did not specify a timeline or method for doing so. Trump touted the agreement as a significant step toward peace in the world.
Skeptics of the meeting noted that Trump signed an agreement that provided concessions without receiving a concrete commitment to a timeline and method for irreversible denuclearization. They also pointed out that North Korea has made similar agreements in the past, only to renege.