The US director of national intelligence has on Tuesday said, although the USA often touts progress being made in denuclearization by North Korean leader during both countries leaders meeting, but North Korea is “unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons” and production capabilities as North Korean leaders view it as “critical to regime survival”.
As part of their annual Worldwide Threat Assessment report to the US Congress, the top intelligence officials, including FBI director Christopher Wray, CIA director Gina Haspel, and director of national intelligence Dan Coats presented the conclusion to the US Senate intelligence committee.
According to USA Today news reports, director Dan Coats’ assessment clashed with the United States President Donald Trump’s assessments, during testimony before a Senate panel, over North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization since North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un meeting with Trump last June.
North Korea has since suspended its prevocational behavior in accordance with nuclear weapons of mass destruction and has not even conducted any nuclear missile tests since more than a year, and has also dismantled several of its nuclear infrastructure systems, Coats said.
Kim continued to demonstrate his openness and willingness to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Coats added in a testimony to the US Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday.
Coats said: “Having said that, we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
He further added, “Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization.”
The World Threat Assessment has oredicted that national security threats to Washington and allies will eventually grow and further diversify in upcoming years, moves in part by Russia and China. It said those countries are cooperating much more these years than at other point since the mid-1950s and also their global influence has been expanding.
The intelligence report said, “Our adversaries and strategic competitors probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests.”
It said, “Russia’s social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities, and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians.”
The report said Russia might think to use some other methods as well, “such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and-leak operations, or manipulating data – in a more targeted fashion to influence US policy, actions, and elections”.