National security adviser speaks after reports based on imagery suggest Pyongyang was continuing work at rocket launching site

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump would be “pretty disappointed” if North Korea launches a new rocket or carries out a missile test, the national security adviser, John Bolton, said on Sunday.

North Korea must give up all nuclear weapons before any sanctions relief, says US Read more

Bolton spoke on ABC’s This Week, regarding reports based on imagery from commercial satellites analysed by non-governmental groups which suggested Pyongyang was continuing work and had been doing so before Trump and Kim Jong-un’s summit in Vietnam last month.

Refusing to comment specifically Bolton said “there’s a lot of activity all the time in North Korea” and added: “Nothing in the proliferation game surprises me any more.”

Trump, he said, would be “pretty disappointed if Kim Jong-un went ahead and did something like” a launch, the president having said the North Korean leader “promised” he would not do so at the recent summit.

Bolton was echoing Trump’s language earlier this week, when he told reporters he would be “very disappointed” if the North was working on tests.

“I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim,” Trump said on Wednesday. “And I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll take a look. It’ll ultimately get solved.”

Trump and Kim’s Vietnam meeting ended abruptly without a deal on North Korean denuclearisation in return for sanctions relief.

On Friday, Trump told reporters his relationship with Kim was “a very good one” and said he would be “surprised in a negative way if he did anything that was not per our understanding”.

Bolton struck a more cautious tone, telling ABC “one mistake that previous administrations made was assuming that North Korea will comply when they undertake obligations”.

“The North Koreans have pledged to give up their nuclear weapons programme at least five separate times, beginning in 1992 … they never seem to get around to it, though.”

He added: “I think Kim Jong-un has a very clear idea of where the president stands, what the objectives he’s trying to achieve are.”

Trump and Kim first met in Singapore in June 2018, producing only a North Korean commitment to “work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

Bolton told ABC he was not aware of any contact between the US and North Korea since Vietnam, though it was “possible the South Koreans have spoken to North Korea”. Trump, he said, was “open” to a third summit, though “some time may have to go by”.