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WASHINGTON – President Trump's national security adviser said on Sunday that North Korea could dismantle all of its nuclear weapons, threatening missiles and biological weapons "in a year," a far more aggressive schedule than the one Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined for The Statements by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser and historically has deep skeptic that North Korea will never fully disarm, cam as Mr. Pompeo
Mr. Pompeo will arrive in Pyongyang with a proposed schedule for disarmament that would begin with a declaration by North Korea of all its weapons, production facilities and missiles. The declaration will be the first real test of the North's candor, increasing its importance. Mr. Bolton, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," said Sunday that, nearly three weeks after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Trump puts in Singapore, no such declaration has arrived.
Advisers to Mr. Pompeo, both outside the government and inside the CIA, which he used to direct, North Korea will not give up its arsenal of 20 to 60 weapons until the last stages of any disarmament plan – if it gives them up at all. Many of the plans for the North to halt production of nuclear fuel – at a time when there are signs of increased production and that the United States and its allies do not seek to overthrow him.
Mr. Bolton, before entering the government, and Mr. Trump had said the North must do : dismantle everything first, and ship its bombs and fuel out of the country. If the North is allowed to keep its weapons until the last stages of disarmament, it would remain a nuclear state for a long while, perhaps years.
The effort to put North Korea on a schedule is particularly urgent because there is no evidence Trump's tweeted proclamation That "there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea." Even Mr. Bolton seemed to distance himself from that badertion on Sunday. 19659002] Worrisome signs about North Korea's commitment to disarmament have been accumulating. In Singapore, Mr. Trump said the North was destroying a major missile-engine test site, but the known sites are still standing, untouched, according to satellite photographs. NORTH AMERICAN CAPACITY TO PRODUCE NEAR NUCLEAR POWER Reactors (19659002) uranium, the other main fuel for nuclear weapons.
The plant is known as Kangsong, according to a report on the secretive facility by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington group that tracks the spread of nuclear arms. The fact that the United States knew about the plant was a closely guarded secret until a few months ago. (19659010) The Kangsong plant is suspected of centrifugals – tall machines that spin at supersonic speeds to concentrate the rare form of uranium used. in bombs. It may have been running for years, and the group noted that it "could have made a substantial amount of weapon-grade uranium," "Mr. Bolton set out a" "
In his television appearance, Mr. Bolton set out a schedule that intelligence officials have already warned is unrealistic. Mr. Pompeo, he said, "will be discussing this with the North Koreans in the near future, about, really, how to dismantle all of their W.M.D. and ballistic missile programs in a year. "
He added," If they have the strategic decision already made to do that and they're cooperative, we can move very quickly. "Mr. Pompeo told Congress recently that he would like to see complete disarmament within two and a half years, Mr. Trump's first term would end. Few badysts believe it can happen fast, if at all
Mr. Pompeo has sought out nonproliferation experts for detailed proposals on how to proceed, and he has turned to a tight team, many drawn from his days at the C.I.A., to draw up a plan. One of the most detailed proposals emerged from the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for the International Peace, which had advocated beginning with what it calls a "freeze plus reduction in readiness" for the North Korean nuclear program.
The first step would be a rigorous program to get the North to separate nuclear warheads from missiles; to remove from the weapons to a key element called the "pit," without which it is impossible to detonate them;
"The idea is that they can not be moved, they can not be touched, and all facilities and locations are to be declared," Ariel Levite, a senior official of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission who, with George Perkovich, drew up the plan sought by Mr. Pompeo. All nuclear enrichment would have been limited to a major site, Yongbyon, where international inspectors lived before being evicted from the North many years ago. "Yongbyon is cheating," Mr. Levite said in an interview, "and you say, 'If we catch you, the whole thing collapses.'"
The idea is to establish multiple tests of the North's willingness to carry through on Mr. Kim's vague commitment to Mr. Trump. Meanwhile, the freeze on new material – including tritium, an element necessary for the North to make advanced atom bombs and more powerful hydrogen bombs – would mean that the program would slowly decay.
But under that proposal, and others presented to Mr. Pompeo, the dismantling of the existing nuclear weapons would come last. "Mr. Levite said," and we are willing to put up with you for a while, provided you make tangible progress on a number of fronts. rapid succession. "
Mr. Bolton, say officials, do not support any proposals that leave the North in possession of weapons for more than a year. And not all experts buy the bombs-last approach. Robert Kelley, a nuclear engineer and former Iraq inspector at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, recently argued that American teams and the North's weapon dismantlers could meet "in the first week" and quickly set to work on atomic disbadembly.
Of course, "he noted," this only works if "Mr. Kim is as deeply committed to the North's denuclearization as Mr. Trump seems to believe – an extraordinarily large" if, "in many nuclear badysts' view.
Another Mr Pompeo was devised by David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security. His first steps centered on Pyongyang turning on a comprehensive inventory of facilities, sites, materials and officials.
"We really do not know much about their nuclear program from a verification point of view," Mr. Albright said recently. "It really is a bit of a black box."
The disclosure of the program's secretive workings, Mr. Albright said, would allow Western officials and nuclear experts to begin dismantlements.
After his presentation, he said experts could not say that he could not do it. in parallel. The atomic unwinding, the institute declared, "Should not be structured in a way that invites North Korea to go slowly."
One of the most authoritative plans was a Stanford University led by Siegfried S. Hecker, a train director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico and a professor at the university. A co-author was Robert L. Carlin, a CIA badyst and state department official intelligence officer who has traveled to North Korea more than 30 times.
The team in late May unveiled a phased denuclearization plan that also left weapon disbadembly for last – beginning six years after the beginning and extending through the 10th year. At the end, international inspectors were to be routinely patrolling the North to verify their status.
At the plan's start, the team argued, North Korea and the United States had to find ways to build trust and interdependence, calling that a prerequisite for long-term denuclearization. It argues that North Korea will probably want to keep some parts of its nuclear program as a result of the fallout, but it is called that risk manageable.
The secret to dismantling the program, Dr. Hecker said in an interview, "
David E. Sanger reported from Washington, DC, and William J. Broad from the United States. New York.
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