From the Center for European Reform, this is the CERR podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Besh.

I'm a research fellow here at the Center for European Reform.

And today I'm joined by Ian Bond, the CEAS foreign policy director, to

talk about North Korea. Welcome, Ian. Thank you very much. So President Donald Trump gave

an interview last weekend to Fox TV, in which he said that Washington was so prepared like

you wouldn't believe for any contingency with Pyongyang. This crisis is far from over.

In fact, the rhetoric seems to get harsher and harsher.

And so what I would like for us to do,

what I would like for Ian to do is give us a bit of a briefing in North Korea

in the first part of this podcast where I want to ask you, Ian,

about North Korea strategic nuclear capability, sanctions,

and how serious we should be taking the situation.

And then in the second part of the podcast, I want to talk about Trump's upcoming trip to Asia,

where he will be going to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, and what the current situation means for the relationship between the US and these countries.

So first question then, how likely is it that North Korea can be prevented from getting a strategic nuclear capability, Ian?

It's very hard at this stage to stop North Korea getting a strategic nuclear capability.

They have been trying to develop a nuclear capability since the early 1990s, I guess, or maybe even a little earlier than that.

And various attempts have been

made both by trying to buy them off in effect, by offering them a civil nuclear power program

in return for giving up their nuclear weapons ambitions through sanctions and threats and so on.

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