Sen. Cory Gardner: Focus More on NKorea, Denuclearization

Sen. Cory Gardner plans to ask Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just a few questions about Russia during his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday afternoon, but he said his focus will be more on North Korea.

"I have legislation in place to add or have the State Department consider whether or not Russia should be named a state sponsor of terror, but I'll spend a lot of time focusing on North Korea," the Colorado Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

North Korea, considering there is a timeline towards its denuclearization, "ought to get more attention than it is," Gardner continued. "There seems to be this idea we'll succeed fast or fail fast with denuclearization. The question is how long will it take to know whether we're succeeding or failing?"

If the United States is succeeding with its discussions with North Korea, then it needs to know what the steps toward denuclearization are, he added, but "if we're failing, we need to know what steps to take to fully implement a variety of sanctions that have yet to be implemented, whether [through]  the United States, or the United Nations, or China."

There already are reports that restrictions on crude oil to North Korea and lowering the price of gasoline is already happening, so "sanctions may be slipping away as we speak," said Gardner.

It is the "great unknown" what will happen, Gardner admitted.

"We've seen the been there, done that before where North Korea made great promises and reneged on those time and time again," he said. "We need to have inspectors on the ground, and unfettered access, and transparency,  and a total accounting of what the nuclear program consists of."

There have been satellite images showing the deconstruction of one of North Korea's missile sites, but Gardner said that's a "small step" toward a resolution.

"It is a very small step and why I remain cautiously optimistic," he said. "This can be rebuilt. Intelligence says it can be rebuilt in a matter of days or weeks. This isn't a concrete step toward denuclearization. This may be a good faith gesture to get toward the denuclearization. We need more than just gestures."

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