Donald Trump's national security advisor said Sunday that the US president would be "pretty disappointed" if North Korea conducted a new missile test, but he refused to confirm reports that such a test may be near.
John Bolton appeared notably cautious when asked on ABC's "This Week" about a report that satellite imagery appears to show preparations at a North Korean site for the possible launch of a missile or space rocket.
"I would rather not get into the specifics on that," he said.
"I'm not going to speculate on what that particular commercial satellite picture shows."
NPR quoted an expert on the North's weapons programs, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, as saying, "When you put all that together, that's really what it looks like when the North Koreans are in the process of building a rocket."
He said Kim promised in Hanoi that he would do no more missile or nuclear testing, adding, "I take him at his word."
"We see it unblinkingly, and we don't have any illusions about what those are."
He said time remains on Washington's side, adding that the president "is not under pressure to make any deal. He wants to make the right deal."
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