Radio Sputnik: Mike Pompeo’s previous visit failed to make progress with North Korea. How high are hopes of any advancement of talks now?
Robert Winstanley-Chesters: Friday, Mike Pompeo tried to downplay the hopes for this summit. There was some speculation that this particular trip to Pyongyang might elicit a time and a date in the process for having the next summit between them – Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
And it’s an interesting sort of triangulation between Japan, South Korea and North Korea at this point…
Radio Sputnik: What are the chances that this particular meeting will bear any fruit, perhaps outlining a potential deal between the US and North Korea, and what kind of deal would satisfy both countries?
Robert Winstanley-Chesters: I think we all know that the Trump administration, especially John Bolton… the only real deal is what they called a verifiable denuclearization. It is essentially a process where North Korea got rid of its nuclear capability, its nuclear capacity, and it was possible to check that through weapons inspectors or nuclear inspectors. That’s the only ultimate solution that the Americans are going to be happy with.
And those are very big asks from North Korea. And there’s also the issues of what Japan would think of this and how this would play in the whole East Asian framework.
So both sides have very big asks, but I don’t particularly perceive that it would be impossible, in the long term, for either of those things to happen.
In a sense, it requires both sides to be a little brave, but both sides have demonstrated that they are capable of being a little bit brave, and both sides have a leadership which seems determined to make decisions.
The views and opinions expressed by Robert Winstanley-Chesters are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.