The world will be watching when the leaders of the United States and North Korea meet in Singapore on June 12. People are wondering whether U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can reach a nuclear agreement.

Some experts have attempted to estimate the amount of time and money needed to take apart North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. They estimate that the disarmament process could last up to 10 years and cost $20 billion.

Trump has said he expects a “very positive result” from the Singapore summit. He said that the talks represent the beginning of a process that will take time. Arms experts are trying to imagine what that process will look like.

Daryl Kimball is the head of the Arms Control Association in Washington. He said that much needs to be done by all the nations involved. “It is going to take sustained energy on the part of the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and North Korea. It’s going to be a multiyear-long process,” he said.

United Nations resolutions designed to punish the North for its nuclear activities remain in effect. Those sanctions have severely limited much of North Korea's economic activity. However, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said this week that sanctions would only be eased after North Korea takes “verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearization.”

The North’s government has suggested that it supports the idea of making concessions over time, with each side giving up something in answer to the other’s actions. But the North has opposed moving quickly to disarm before any concessions are offered.

Aliqismet BADALOV,
“Khalq qazeti”