Bolton:

Trump’s ‘diplomatic outreach’ to North Korea a failure

John Bolton, former national security adviser to the US president, has denounced Donald Trump’s “diplomatic outreach” to North Korea, calling it a failure.

News ID: 449131

Date: 19 February 2020 - 08:46

RNA - Bolton said “the pursuit of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, the meetings with him and the efforts to get a deal with North Korea are doomed to failure. North Korea in the last 30 years has on four separate memorable occasions publicly committed to getting rid of nuclear weapons and just never seems to get around to doing it.”

The former national security adviser said "it was perfectly evident that North Korea policy was going to fail."

Bolton made the remarks at a forum on foreign policy on Monday in his first public appearance since Trump’s impeachment trial in which Republicans refused to hear his testimony.

Rounds of negotiations between the US and North Korea have ground to a halt as the US refused to offer any sanctions relief despite Pyongyang’s unilateral steps to show its goodwill in denuclearization efforts.

Bolton also hinted that his unpublished book contained far more revelations than just Trump's campaign to pressure Ukraine for help with domestic politics.

He raised concern about his unpublished book being "suppressed" by the White House that informed him in January that his book manuscript contained classified information and could not be published.

“I hope, ultimately, I can get the book published. I hope it’s not suppressed.” Bolton told the event at Duke University in North Carolina.

“For all the focus on Ukraine and the impeachment trial and all that, to me, there are portions of the manuscript that deal with Ukraine, I view that like the sprinkles on the ice cream sundae in terms of what’s in the book. This is an effort to write history and I did it the best I can. We’ll have to see what comes out of the censorship,” he noted.

The New York Times reported last month that that Bolton wrote in his manuscript that Trump wanted to continue freezing hundreds of millions of dollars  in security assistance to Ukraine and pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, a charge that fueled Trump's impeachment.

On December 18, the Democratic-led House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment charging Trump with abuse of power and obstructing Congress relating to his actions in Ukraine.

The Republican-led Senate, however, acquitted Trump largely along party lines on February 5 in only the third presidential impeachment trial in US history.

Bolton left his post in September following some policy disagreements with the President. Trump said he fired him.

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