Washington, Nov 01: The only way to combat North Korea's dictator is for the world to unite against him as it has against terrorism, North Korean's top-ranking defector has said in an interview. On his first trip to the United States, Hwang Jang Yop also said he believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is fully prepared to start a war and that there's no telling whether Kim will ever give up his nuclear program.
"It's like ... asking whether a venomous snake will bite or not,'' Hwang said in the interview.
The 81-year-old Hwang is a former chief of North Korea's Parliament who once mentored Kim and then became the country's highest-ranking defector in 1997. He was in Washington this week to share his views about the regime with the Pentagon, State Department and other U.S. officials in an administration that has been trying to negotiate to bring an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. A senior adminstration official said Thursday that sessions with Hwang were "very productive.''
China's second-highest leader yesterday returned from North Korea with an agreement "in principle'' from Pyongyang to rejoin talks.
But Hwang said that he's personally uninterested in the outcome of such talks, which also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Bureau Report