Washington DC, June 25: The US intelligence community does not believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was not ready to hold denuclearization negotiations with the United States, Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, the director of US defence intelligence agency director, has told Fox News on Monday during an exclusive interview.
Strained in the relations between the US and North Korea have occurred since the failure of the second historic summit between President Donald Trump and his N Korean counterpart held in February in Vietnam, during which both leaders failed to reach a common consensus due to large differences as Kim stressed for US sanctions relief, whereas Trump focused over Kim’s last year commitment of full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
According to Reuters news reports, during the interview, Ashley said, “We still continue to assess within the IC (Intelligence Community) that Kim Jong-un is not ready to denuclearize.”
Trump is scheduled to pay an official two-day visit to South Korea on Saturday after receiving a letter from Kim yesterday, which boosted hopes to resuming stalled talks which aimed at putting an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Trump will arrive in Seoul on Saturday and is also slated to hold a meeting with his S Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in on Sunday, following the G20 summit going to be held this week in Osaka, Japan, Moon’s spokesperson Ko Min-jung has stated.
The announcement came shortly after Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, said he hoped Trump’s letter sent to Kim could pave ways to revive talks between the two sides which ended abruptly after the Hanoi summit failure.