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Trump aides worry he may get outmaneuvered in summit with Kim

Saturday, 23 February 2019 10:12 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 23 February 2019 10:19 PM ]

TOPSHOT - A platform is seen at Dandong Railway Station in the Chinese border city of Dandong, in China's northeast Liaoning province late on February 22, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's train is expected to pass through the station on a journey across China before his summit meeting with US President Donald Trump in Vietnam on February 27. (AFP photos)

US President Donald Trump’s aides worry that he may get outfoxed in the scheduled summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

That is why figures such as national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Defense Secretary James Mattis have distanced themselves from the talks, Politico reported.

“There is not optimism in the administration,” said Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the Eurasia Group. “Pompeo is deeply skeptical that we are going to get anything of substance on denuclearization from Kim Jong Un, and Pompeo believes the North Koreans are just playing for time.”

Pyongyang has already confirmed that Kim has left on a train to go to the summit.

Conservative pro-US, anti-North Korea activists march through central Seoul on February 23, 2019. (AFP photo)

Trump, however, has shown unprecedented excitement at the meeting scheduled next week, voicing joy over “wonderful letters” he has received from the North Korean leader, and the “good rapport” he has developed.

Bolton said at The Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO conference in December that North Koreans “have not lived up to the commitments so far… That’s why I think the president thinks another summit is likely to be productive.”

A joint declaration after last year’s Singapore summit demand that Pyongyang “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

PressTV-N Korea 'not to denuclearize unless US nuke threat removed'

North Korean media say the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula should also mean the removal of the US nuclear threat against North Korea.

There has been no indication that differences over Washington’s demands that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons program had been settled.

Trump has claimed that Washington's diplomacy with Pyongyang has eliminated a purported threat posed by North Korea to the US national security.

According to Politico, “satellite images revealed that North Korea has continued to build out a number of hidden missile bases whose existence it has never acknowledged.”

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