National Security Adviser John Bolton Monday said there "should be consequences" for an article in The New York Times reporting that the Trump administration is willing to agree to a "nuclear freeze" with North Korea.
"I read this NYT story with curiosity," Bolton tweeted. "Neither the NSC staff nor I have discussed or heard of any desire to 'settle for a nuclear freeze by NK.' This was a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the President. There should be consequences."
The New York Times reported on Sunday that for weeks before President Donald Trump took his historic step into North Korea, his administration had been considering an agreement that would, in essence, accept the country as a nuclear power, falling short of vows never to allow that to happen.
The plan would keep North Korea's arsenal from getting any larger, but it wouldn't include dismantling what is already there or limit the country's capability.
Meanwhile, Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo oppose North Korea Chairman Kim Jong Un's offer to shutter his country's Yongbyon nuclear-fuel production site, a plan Trump rejected under pressure from them.
According to The Times, the administration wants to get North Korea to agree on expanding the definition of the Yongbyon site, and if that happens, it could effectively result in the nuclear freeze.
But to make a deal successful, North Korea would be required to include shuttering several facilities, including the Kangson site, where U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies think uranium fuel is still being produced.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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