David Petraeus, the retired general and former Central Intelligence Agency director, said the U. S. needs to continue tightening sanctions on North Korea to get the country’s “attention” and persuade it to accept a diplomatic accord over its nuclear arsenal.
David Petraeus, the retired general and former Central Intelligence Agency director, said the U. S. needs to continue tightening sanctions on North Korea to get the country’s “attention” and persuade it to accept a diplomatic accord over its nuclear arsenal.
President Donald Trump is facing a situation with North Korea “very, very different than it has been for other administrations” given Pyongyang’s progress toward developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the U. S. mainland, Petraeus said. That means the U. S. needs to keep squeezing financial institutions in China and elsewhere “that are enabling North Korea to operate in the global financial world without which they would be in very desperate condition.”
Until a breakthrough is achieved, Petraeus said, North Korea will be the centerpiece of U. S.-China ties, taking precedence over other priorities such as trade and military actions in the South China Sea.
“The elephant in the room is going to continue to be North Korea, ” Petraeus, 64, said in an interview Monday in Boston. “At the end of the day there is going to have to be some diplomatic resolution of this.
