By VOA News
The director of U.S. national intelligence says the ongoing U.S. push to persuade North Korea to give up its controversial nuclear program is, in his words, “probably a lost cause.”
James Clapper delivered his assessment Tuesday in New York to the nonpartisan, independent Council on Foreign Relations. “They are not going to do that,” he said of North Korea’s leadership. “That [nuclear program] is their ticket to survival.”
Instead, he said, the best that Western governments and their East Asian allies can hope for are negotiations with Pyongyang leading to a cap on its nuclear capabilities.
