The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Tuesday he is skeptical about the sincerity of North Korea’s offer to begin talks to end the regime’s nuclear program.
“That’s kind of a ‘show-me,’” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “So we’ll see how this plays out.”
South Korean officials on Tuesday announced the North’s willingness to negotiate over the potential dismantling of its nuclear weapons, despite persistent past refusals to even consider the possibility. The change in tone could be a victory for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has led a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign designed to force dictator Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table.
But Ashley poured cold water on the gesture.
“Senator, right now, I don’t share your optimism,” Ashley told Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.
Earlier in the hearing, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said he hoped the possibility of talks leads somewhere.
“We saw the news this morning relative to North Korea,” Coats told the panel. “Hope springs eternal, but we need to learn a lot more relative to these talks.
“All efforts in the past have failed and have simply bought North Korea time to achieve what they want to achieve,” Coats said. “Maybe this is a breakthrough. I seriously doubt it.”
Their responses came hours after the first reports of a diplomatic breakthrough on the Korean Peninsula.
“The North side clearly affirmed its commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and said it would have no reason to possess nuclear weapons should the safety of its regime be guaranteed and military threats against North Korea removed,” Chung Eui-yong, the top national security adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told reporters following a meeting with the North Korean dictator.
President Trump welcomed the news, though he allowed “it may be false hope” of defusing a crisis that could lead to a devastating war. “For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned,” Trump tweeted. “The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!”
Ashley predicted that North Korea would remain a “critical threat” to the United States. “While the United Nations has imposed additional sanctions on North Korea, Kim shows no interest in walking away from his nuclear or ballistic missile program,” he said during the hearing. “Additional missile launches are a near-certainty and further nuclear tests are possible as Pyongyang seeks to refine its weapons design and its reliability.”
