Tunde Sulaiman 
South Korea’s president has said he would agree to a deal between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in which North Korea agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons, rather than get rid of them.
Lee Jae Myung told the BBC North Korea was producing an additional 15-20 nuclear weapons a year and that a freeze – as “an interim emergency measure” – would be “a feasible, realistic alternative” to denuclearization for now. North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in 2022 and vowed to never relinquish its weapons.
“So long as we do not give up on the long-term goal of denuclearisation, I believe there are clear benefits to having North Korea stop its nuclear and missile development,” Lee Jae Myung said.
“The question is whether we persist with fruitless attempts towards the ultimate goal [of denuclearisation] or we set more realistic goals and achieve some of them,” Lee added.
