On Sunday, the U.S. officials entered North Korea to prepare for the upcoming summit with Kim Jong-Un and President Donald Trump.
South Korean president Moon Jae-In, who acted as the mediator between both parties, announced in a press conference that Kim Jong-Un is keen on meeting President Trump and that he is willing to discuss denuclearization.
Contrary to President Moon’s views, former CIA Director Michael Hayden said that he does not believe North Korea’s claims that it is willing to denuclearize.
“These folks are not going to get rid of all their nuclear weapons,” he said on ABC ‘s “This Week.”
“And if President Trump’s brand … demands something like that, this is going to end up in a very bad place,” he added, according to a report by The Hill .
Senator Marco Rubio also seconded this view. Rubio is convinced that Kim Jong-Un does not want to denuclearize. North Korea is an erratic regime, he said.
After applauding President Trump for canceling the North Korea summit, Sen. @MarcoRubio speaks with @MarthaRaddatz on how Trump is handling talks with Kim Jong Un, coming up on “This Week” https://t.co/zcqAC2P7Be
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 27, 2018
“It all depends. It depends on exactly what we should expect on the back end. We have a leader in Kim Jong Un who has almost an emotional attachment… to these nuclear weapons,” Rubio said.
According to President Moon, one of the biggest challenges to holding the summit is the lack of trust between North Korea and the United States. These two nations have viewed each other as threats since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
President Moon said that Kim Jong-Un has expressed a desire to “end a history of war and confrontation” on the peninsula. The North Korean leader is willing to talk about getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, which is the prime objective of the Trump administration.
In fact, denuclearization was one of the pre-conditions of the summit that was scheduled to take place in June. However, the meeting was called off by Trump when a North Korean foreign minister attacked Vice President Mike Pence who remarked that North Korea would end up like Libya if Kim Jong-Un did not stick to his end of the bargain.
President Trump had called off the first summit because diplomats on the North Korean side verbally attacked Vice-President Mike Pence for comparison of Pyongyang to Libya. However, after Saturday’s meeting with President Moon Jae-In, Kim Jong-Un has been looking forward to meeting Trump.
Meanwhile, an American team led by Joe Hagin, deputy chief of staff in the White House, is organizing logistics with Kim Chang Son, who is the North Korean leader’s chief of staff.
