SEOUL: North Korea will never completely give up its nuclear weapons, a top defector said ahead of leader Kim Jong Un's landmark summit with US President Donald Trump next month. "In the end, North Korea will remain 'a nuclear power packaged as a non-nuclear state'," Mr Thae told the South's Newsis news agency. Pyongyang has said it does not need nuclear weapons if the security of its regime is guaranteed. "North Korea's diplomacy has always been a repeat of hardline and appeasement," Mr Thae said. "It is North Korea's diplomatic tactic to push the situation to extreme confrontation and suddenly send peace gestures."

Source: Bangkok Post May 14, 2018 04:41 UTC