N Korea a 'significant threat': Trump's pick for top commander in South
North Korea still poses a "significant" nuclear threat despite the Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, says Trump’s nominee for the next American commander for US and allied forces in South Korea.
“There still remains a significant conventional and strategic (nuclear) capability on behalf of [North Korea]," Army. Gen. Robert B. Abrams told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
When asked by Sen. Jack Reed, (D-R.I.), about the effect of cancelling joint military exercises, or "war games," with South Korea following the June summit, Abrams said that there had been "slight degradation" to the US military presence on the Korean Peninsula, but said it was a "prudent risk" to see if North Korea would end its nuclear weapons program.
On when the joint exercises with South Korea will restart, Abrams said no final decision has been made yet, but noted that Pentagon officials "are proceeding with planning" for the next installment of scheduled spring war games.
Abrams is a West Point graduate and the the son of Army Gen. Creighton Abrams, who led US forces in Vietnam from 1968-1972. He will lead all 28,500 US troops in South Korea if confirmed.
The remarks came one day after newly-appointed CIA Director Gina Haspel said North Korea considered its nukes as indispensable to its survival.
"The North Koreans view their capability as leverage, and I don’t think that they want to give it up easily," Haspel said in a speech at her alma mater, the University of Louisville. "We're certainly in a better place than we were in 2017 because of the dialogue we've established between our two leaders."
On June 12, at a historic summit with Trump, Kim agreed to "work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" in return for security guarantees and an end to a dangerous stand-off with US forces.
Trump has repeatedly hailed the meeting in Singapore as an unqualified success.
Some analysts, however, do not believe Pyongyang intends to give up its nuclear or ballistic missile weapons program easily any time soon. Pyongyang knows very well that accepting to dismantle its nuclear arsenal could ultimately lead to its destruction as was the case in Libya.
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