Talks between Pyeongyang and Washington have not seen much progress recently.
Our Kan Hyeong-woo sat down with Joseph Yun, former U.S. Special Representative for North Korea,... to analyze the current deadlock and future outlook for talks.
Hello Mr. Joseph Yun. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for making time to do this interview with us today.
Of course. Happy to be here.
So let's get right into the questions. Despite the Moon-Kim-Trump DMZ gathering in June, North Korea has been saying some pretty strong words toward South Korea and the U.S… Why do you think this is?

I think that is clearly the feeling in North Korea that they have quite a bit of leverage, better bargaining power. They have the bomb. They also have the delivery mechanism, which is the missiles. So I would imagine they are feeling confident. Yet, at the same time, despite these meetings, there have been no substantive easing on what they are concerned with most, which is sanctions. So this is why I think they are coming out aggressive vis-a-vis Washington, aggressive vis-a-vis Seoul. Because they want to send the message 'we are not getting what you guys promised' and so I believe that is the message.
So the U.S. says it's ready to talk when the North is ready. North Korea says it's ready for talks and even battles. Will the talks resume anytime soon?
I mean, right now, it really doesn't look like it's gonna resume soon.
But I have to believe that political interest of both Trump and Kim Jong-un point to the direction of resuming sooner rather than later. For.. remember, for Trump, he has an election coming up, re-election coming up next year. And so for him, North Korea is, you know for him, is a foreign policy victory. Kim Jong-un knows the political imperative of Trump. So he's going to try to get maximum leverage out of it.
So going further into what you were just saying... with next year's election in mind, Washington probably has a lot of what-ifs mapped out as far as North Korea's denuclearization process is concerned. What are the people over at the White House thinking?
You know there are clearly those who are very similar in thinking to Donald Trump - which is that, you know, North Korea stopped testing missiles. They've stopped testing nuclear devices. So we are in a decent place. But then there are those who I call 'true believers'. People like Bolton, who say 'but we've achieved nothing. There has been no denuclearization. Not even little bit. Rather, they have probably gotten bigger nuclear arsenal' and so I think that is a division - which is why you are hearing mixed messages from Washington.
All right. I think that about wraps it up. Thank you for your time Mr. Yun.
Good to be here. Thank you.