Trump-Kim Nuclear Breakthrough an 'Extreme Long Shot'
Daniel Russel on NPR
In the wake of President Donald Trump's decision to agree to a potential meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, the Asia Society Policy Institute's Daniel Russel, spoke to NPR's Don Gonyea on what such a meeting could accomplish.
Russel states that though everyone would want the summit to "produce a breakthrough that could lead to negotiations and ultimately culminate in denuclearization... I think it's an extreme long shot." He calls for patience given that "we haven't even heard from the North Koreans themselves; we're getting this second hand from the South Koreans." He also points out that in his recent New Year's Day speech, Kim "made it very clear" that "he has absolutely no intention of denuclearizing."
Stating that "the North Koreans are very, very tough bargainers," Russel says that the Trump administration will likely find that "the difficulty in trying to move North Korea, now that it actually has nuclear weapons, has gone way up." (4 min., 40 sec.)