Trump pushes back against US spy chiefs on North Korea
President shrugs off assessments and says there is a decent chance of denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula
Washington — President Donald Trump dismissed assessments by top US spy chiefs of the threat posed by North Korea on Wednesday, offering a more optimistic view that there was a “decent chance of denuclearisation” on the Korean Peninsula. Leaders of the US intelligence community told a Senate panel on Tuesday that the threat from North Korea remained unchanged from a year ago and said Pyongyang viewed its nuclear programme as vital to the country’s survival and was unlikely to give it up. The Republican president has repeatedly clashed with leaders of the US intelligence community, most strikingly in disputing their finding that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election to help him win the White House. Trump has invested heavily in improving relations with Pyongyang in hopes of getting the reclusive communist nation to abandon its nuclear ambitions. He broke with decades of US policy when he agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last June and planned a second ...
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