US Envoy: NKorea Denuclearization Must Not Be Incremental

The State Department's special envoy for North Korea says the Trump administration won't budge from insisting that North Korea fully rid itself of nuclear weapons before the U.S. makes concessions.

Stephen Biegun on Monday told a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that President Donald Trump wants a deal in which U.S. and international economic sanctions are lifted only when the North agrees to give up all elements of its nuclear weapons program.

Biegun says that at last month's Hanoi summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to eliminate a portion of his nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. He says Trump rejected this because it would have amounted to subsidizing the remaining portion of the nuclear program.