Pence: North Korea will ‘end like the Libyan model’ if Kim does not cooperate

Vice President Pence warned in an interview on Monday that talks between the U.S. and North Korea could end like Libya’s denuclearization process if Kim Jong Un does not cooperate.

 

 

 

“You know, there was some talk of the Libyan model last week. And as the president made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal,” Pence told Martha MacCallum on Fox News. 

{mosads}”It would be a great mistake for Kim Jong Un to think he could play Donald Trump,” Pence said, adding that there is no question Trump would be willing to walk away from the talks if they prove unproductive. 

“But we hope for better. We really hope that Kim Jong Un will seize the opportunity to dismantle his nuclear weapons program, and do so by peaceable means,” he said. 

Pence’s remarks come after national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday that the U.S. was looking at using the Libya model as a way of getting Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear weapons. 

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was forced from power with the help of NATO forces just eight years after striking a deal with the U.S. to give up his nuclear weapons.

He was captured and killed in 2011. 

North Korea had already threatened to call off the talks before Bolton’s remarks.

President Trump said on Monday that the U.S. would offer protections to Kim if he agreed to give up his nuclear weapons, adding he was not considering the Libyan model, appearing to contradict Bolton. 

“The Libyan model isn’t a model that we have at all when we are thinking of North Korea,” Trump said. “In Libya, we decimated that country. That country was decimated. There was no deal to keep [President Moammar] Gadhafi. The Libyan model that was mentioned was a much different deal.”