North Korea under the current circumstances may likely never relinquish its arsenal of nuclear weapons, former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said in a wide-ranging speech on Monday.

Speaking in Washington DC in some of his first public remarks following his departure from the White House earlier in the month, Bolton appeared to cast doubt on the feasibility of current administration policy towards North Korea.

“It seems to me clear that the DPRK has not made a strategic decision to give up his nukes,” the former National Security Advisor — long seen as a hardliner within the administration