INTERVIEW: N. Korea Unlikely to Give Up Nuke Arsenal

June 10, 2018

Seoul- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has no intention to abandon his country's nuclear weapons, former South Korean Unification Minister Kang In-duk has said in a recent interview with Jiji Press, ahead of a historic U.S.-North Korea summit slated for Tuesday.

At the Singapore meeting, Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to only agree on an unspecific scheme on the denuclearization of North Korea, Kang said.

Possessing nuclear weapons is indispensable for Kim to maintain a stable power base at home, said Kang, who served as unification minister in 1998-1999 under then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Kang, who also served as North Korean affairs bureau chief at the former Korean Central Intelligence Agency, pointed out that there are no known childhood photos of Kim sitting on the lap of his grandfather, the late North Korean supreme leader Kim Il Sung.

As North Korea's final goal is to become a de facto nuclear power like India and Pakistan, Kim Jong Un is expected to take a position as such a country at the summit with Trump, Kang said.

Given that Washington and Pyongyang have had only a short time to prepare for the summit, a Trump-Kim agreement if any on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will only echo the rhetoric used in the Panmunjom Declaration, which was adopted at the April 27 summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Kang predicted. Jiji Press