In the fall of 2002, Bolton got his wish. The Agreed Framework dissolved with no viable replacement, but it came at a tremendous strategic cost: an acceleration of the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons program, culminating in the testing of its first nuclear device in October 2006. Bolton’s unremitting hostility to an imperfect deal had the adverse effect of freeing the North Koreans from restrictions on their nuclear work, including the production of weapons-grade plutonium and the expansion of its uranium enrichment capacity. This development wasn’t lost on North Korean negotiators, who have referred to Bolton over the years as the “father of their nuclear weapons program
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Bolton’s participation in the second US-DPRK summit in Hanoi, Vietnam last February, however, was his gravest offense. By all accounts, there was an opportunity at the summit to reach a partial agreement on dismantling the massive Yongbyon nuclear research facility. But at the eleventh hour, Bolton convinced Trump to put another all-or-nothing proposal on the table which demanded the North’s complete, immediate and unconditional nuclear surrender in return for US agreement to lift all sanctions on North Korea. Kim, as Bolton almost certainly expected, rejected the proposal. As a result, the US missed an opportunity to cement an important if limited agreement on the road to a more comprehensive denuclearization-for-normalization accord. Seven months after the collapse of the Hanoi Summit, Pyongyang remains embittered by what they perceived as Washington’s lack of seriousness.”
https://www.38north.org/2019/10/depetris101719/
