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US Official: Stopping N. Korea's Nuclear Program 'Probably Is Lost Cause'

by VOA News

   The director of U.S. national intelligence says the ongoing U.S. push
   to persuade North Korea to give up its controversial nuclear program
   is, in his words, "probably a lost cause."

   James Clapper delivered his assessment Tuesday in New York to the
   nonpartisan, independent Council on Foreign Relations. "They are not
   going to do that," he said of North Korea's leadership. "That [nuclear
   program] is their ticket to survival."

   Instead, he said, the best that Western governments and their East
   Asian allies can hope for are negotiations with Pyongyang leading to a
   cap on its nuclear capabilities.

   WATCH: James Clapper Discusses North Korean Nuclear Capability

   Clapper described North Korea's reclusive leadership as "under siege"
   and "very paranoid."

   "So the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever [that]
   is, is a nonstarter for them," he added.

   For more than a decade, the U.S. administration and the vast majority
   of world governments have consistently demanded that North Korea
   denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. However, Western leaders have yet to
   devise a plan that would either compel the North to cooperate or create
   incentives for it to do so.

   Talks sponsored by China between a six-nation panel and Pyongyang,
   aimed at finding common ground, have been stalled since the North
   withdrew from negotiations in 2009, three years after announcing its
   first nuclear test.

   FILE - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets scientists and technicians
   in the field of research into nuclear weapons in this undated photo
   released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), in
   Pyongyang, March 9, 2016.

   Washington has since said the resumption of the six-party talks would
   require the government of Kim Jong Un to commit once again to halting
   its nuclear tests and scrapping its nuclear development program -- a
   stance the Obama administration reaffirmed Tuesday.

   "We want to continue to see a verifiable denuclearization of the
   peninsula," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. "We want to see
   a return to the six-party talks process, and that means we need to see
   the North show a willingness" to do so.

   Pyongyang has so far rejected Western overtures and continues to resist
   world leaders' attempts to bring it into compliance with a string of
   United Nations resolutions. It conducted two underground nuclear blasts
   this year, along with nearly two dozen missile tests, and shows no
   public sign of willingness to rein in its nuclear ambitions.