Trump-Kim summit 2019: is North Korea really willing to give up its nukes? The Americans who negotiated a 1994 deal still have hope
- Under Bill Clinton, US agreed deal to freeze Pyongyang’s plutonium production
- But that deal collapsed after North Korea established parallel programme
“I don’t think any of us on the team were optimistic,” said Gallucci, who led the team tasked with resolving an impasse that brought then president Bill Clinton close to war with North Korea. “We thought there was a chance that they wanted something from us.”
The Agreed Framework, which included the North agreeing to freeze plutonium production in exchange for civilian-use reactors and the normalisation of relations with Washington, remained in place for nearly a decade before falling apart after it emerged Pyongyang had been enriching uranium.
Thae Young-ho, North Korea’s former deputy ambassador to London who defected to the South in 2016, on Tuesday insisted Pyongyang would not relinquish its nuclear weapons “under any circumstances”.
“Even if it is paid trillions of dollars, the North will never abandon nuclear weapons under the Kim Jong-un regime,” Thae said. “Nuclear weapons mean everything for the North. They are the pillars that support its system and that fills the gaps in its conventional weapons.”
