♪ ♪ welcome to amanpour on pbs. tonight, days before that historic summit between the two koreas, the u.n. political affairs chief jeffrey saltman joins me for his first exclusive interview on all that he's seen, including high-level meetings in north korea. also ahead, a top investigative journalist assassinated in europe, we talk to her sons, vowing to get justice and keep her extraordinary work alive. matthew and paul tell me about their fearless mother and the daphne project. ♪ ♪

>> good evening, everyone. and welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london. preparations are ramping up just days before the leaders of north and south korea meet on friday. south korea has now stopped broadcasting propaganda by loudspeakers along the border, and the north's leader kim jong-un has said that his country, quote, no longer needs nuclear tests and will close anatomic test site. the historic summit will proceed an even more anticipated meeting between kim and donald trump who over the weekend rejected claims that he had made too many concessions to pyongyang. he tweeted, we are a long way from conclusion on north korea. maybe things will workout and maybe they won't. only time will tell. but the work i'm doing now should have been done a long time ago. well, joining me now, perhaps to manage expectations, is jeffrey saltman as u.n. under

secretary-general political said he became the highest u.n. official to meet with the leadership in pyongyang. that was in december and jeffrey saltman joins me now. welcome to the program. >> thank you very much, christiane, glad to be here. >> i said you're here to manage expectations. what do you think will be the maximum we can expect, first, from the summit meeting on friday between the leaders of the two koreas? >> i think that the meeting on friday should be seen in two contexts. one is the inter-korean relationship itself, where president moon jae-in of south korea, the republic of korea, has made it clear he wants to reduce the risk of war. he wants to try to improve the relationship, but i don't think he's going into this naively. i think he understands that denuclearization is key, not only for the united states, but also for his ability to move forward. the second area, of course, is it will be seen naturally as a preparatory meeting for the

potential of a summit meeting between president trump and president -- and kim jong-un, the leader of north korea. >> you were there in december and we interviewed you when you came back and, you know, you were rightly quite sort of -- you weren't going to play your cards and sort of predict what might happen. in that time, there was a lot of, you know, stress and tension between the united states and between north korea, between north korea and south korea, all these words and rhetoric that was being flung around. so, do you, in the intervening months, think that kim jong-un has actually made quite a hard turn to a more manageable rhetoric, at least saying that, you know, he'll suspend nuclear tests and ballistic missile tests? he doesn't -- he's not wedded to getting american forces out of the peninsula. how do you read him? >> i don't think any of us

really know what is going on at the most senior levels and certainly none of us know what is going on in the mind of kim jong-un. what i can say is that where we are now i think is an inherently better situation than we were just a few months ago. if you think back to september when the six nuclear tests had been launched by the north koreans, the north koreans claimed it was a hydrogen general bo bomb. the inter-continental ballistic missile launch on the high trajectory but made it clear the technology was there to hit the continental united states. we are in a much better situation now for the mere fact that the talk about dialogue has led to a suspension of the nuclear and missile testing of the dprk. i think most experts would agree the dprk, for all of its rhetoric, has not mastered the full cycle, the full reentry cycle. so i look at the suspension of these tests not as in and of

themselves,ut as a improvement over the environment that we hadn september, october, november last y >> and in december, i mean, you did say it being the most important mission of your career. you also said when you returned you had the lack of communication had with it sort of a high risk of some kind of miscalculation. so, i guess the question now is do we think going into these talks, with all this talk about willingness to denuclearize, that both sides are speaking from the same coin, in other words? do they both see denuclearization in the same way, both the u.s. and north korea, or north and south korea? >> i don't think we know what the two sides are speaking the same language talking about denuclearization. and i think this is going to be a very, very difficult subject for them to address. i mean, there are international agreements, international

mechanisms for monitoring the end of nuclear testing. there is international agreements on how you would monitor the elimination and destruction of material or shutting down plants. look at the other things north korea has. they have scientists who have knowledge. we know that there's been issues of proliferation. how do you deal with the fact that you can't just erase the type of knowledge that's there? so, i suspect these are going to be very, very difficult talks. i think what one can hope is that coming out of these dual sum its is a sort of an agreement on principles and a fairly short timetable that would allow people to judge whether or not verifiable steps toward denuclearization and verifiable steps towards the regional peace and security issues that kim jong-un says are his interests are, in fact, achievable, are being met. >> and president trump, among the other things he tweeted, was

that i'm doing things that should have been done many, many years ago. but again, to be fair, many presidents did try to approach north korea and did try to diffuse the tensions. in fact, evenresint obama suggested he would meet with kim jong-un. like you said about the iranian president, before there was the nuclear deal. so, what has president trump done, do you think, different than his predecessors? and is his approach working? >> well, i think president trump goes into this summit from a position of strength. it's not his own creation. it's the creation of successive administrations, but it's come to a head with the trump administration. you have multiple security council resolutions that have increased the pressure on north korea. that the trump administration has been able to show that whatever the international community thinks about some of the trump administration policies, they agree that nuclear nonproliferation is an

important goal. so, he goes in with this sense of resolve that's reflected by those security council resolutions and the growing implementation of the sanctions. when i was there in december, one of the strongest talking points that i had as a u.n. official was talking about the fact that this was -- that the problem with north korea was not simply a washington/pyongyang problem or a tokyo or a seoul/pyongyang problem. that the problem with north korea's nuclear program, its missile program was something international. and those sanctions resolutions were the reinforcement of that, of that point. and so what is different is that president trump has been able to show that the sanctions can be implemented by all, including china. >> well, you know, sanctions were implemented -- if we roll back the clock -- in iran and that was a big, big, i suppose,

impetus for that set of negotiations to happen. president macron of france has just arrived in the united states and he's being treated to the first state visit by president trump. that's a full year in office. president macron will be the first. we see him and his wife getting off the plane. particularly in view of the iran nuclear deal which president trump doesn't like nor do his top officials, what do you think president macron should tell the president and what are the chances of him persuading the president to stay in that deal, especially ahead of his north korea talk? >> i think president macron will be talking with president trump at three levels. one is as the bilateral partner. france and the united states have a long historical relationship. we all know that. but the second is as a leading member of the european union. the trump administration doesn't seem to have spent a whole lot of time thinking about or

cultivating the relationship with the e.u. as a whole. france, if i were president macron, i would make it clear that france is a key to keeping the european union on board for sanctions, on board for enforcement of international agreements, on board for whatever the verification mechanisms that are needed for iran or north korea. and to keep the e.u. on board for the policy on syria. the third area that france, of course, is key is the security council. and i don't think, again, that we would see the type of diplomacy proposed on north korea if there hadn't been such strong security council unity. so, france bilaterally as a european partner and as a security council member is key to the trump administration achieving its goals. >> we have one minute left. i want to ask you about the security council and syria. you have called the syria

debacle perhaps the most tragic example of the failure of the international community. member states have simply failed. what again, in the aftermath of launching those strikes on the chemical weapons facilities, do you think should be the logical next step that macron and trump can talk about for syria? >> how he views reconstruction as some sort of leverage. the russians a iranians are not going to want to reconstruct syria. they do not have the financial resources. the europeans, perhaps the americans have the financial resources. one of the conditions by which reconstruction funds would be released, one of the political conditions, the conditions in terms of the iranian and russian role. look at the catastrophe that syria is. first and foremost, for the syrian people themselves. but also when you have iran more deeply entrenched, turkey, iran and russia in alliance, i wouldn't think would be in the u.s. interest. so, can you come up with some sort of understanding with

france over what is the conditionality for reconstruction that would give some leverage over influencing the outcome of the syria conflict. >> fascinating because if donald trump knows a lot about something, it's leverage and how to use t. we'll see whether macron can leverage on that issue. a former under secretary-general jeffrey saltman, thanks for join us. and now we turn to a personal quest for justice that has been joined the world over. six months ago an unthinkable crime was committed in europe. daphne caruana galizia was blown up by a car bomb. yes, in europe. a fearless reporter, she had been routing out corruption and she had struck deep into the heart of the maltese government and their crone eaies. since her assassination, her widow and sons have been working tirelessly to get justice. the daphne project is an effort by 18 news organizations in 15 countries to preserve her legacy

and finish her investigation. two of her sons, matthew and paul, joined me earlier here in the stuo to talk about who their mother was and to tell me that despite the arrest of the trigger men, they won't rest until they find out who masterminded her murder. paul and matthew, welcome to the program. you are launching the daphne project. it's designed to finish the stories and the investigations your mother was working on. but beyond that, how are you holding up six months after her murder, paul? >> i think the past six months have been just a complete whirlwind, you know, really the first few weeks where we weren't even sure what was going on, what's happening, who we could trust. but gradually over the past few weeks we came into contact with more and more journalists, more ngos, more lawyers who are willing to help us. so it's quite impressive i think we can look back over the past

six months, and i think we played some role in assembling people who are really dedicated to this cause, to fighting for justice for our mother. >> it's incredible that you are continuing that fight. matthew, even today it's hard to read your eyewitness to a car bomb in europe that killed a journalist, your mother. it's just staggering to even imagine that happened. but you're her son. you were at home that day. walk us through those last moments. >> i remember it being a very, a very quiet day. i was very focused on my work and my mother was focused on her work. the way we normally worked is we shared the dining room table. i think we just had something small for lunch. my mother said -- she took a phone call from the bank and she said, okay, i have to go, i have to go to a meeting at the bank.

she walked out, walked out of the house with her, with her bag and a few seconds later walking back towards the house, she had forgotten her checkbook. she said, okay, now i'm really going. bye. and closed the heavy door. we have a heavy front door. she closed it behind her and all the keys on the back kind of jangled. really it must have been a minute later, less than a minute probably, just hearing the explosion and the windows shaking. and i knew immediately -- i thought immediately -- i knew what happened. i just jumped out of my chair and got to the door. i remember the dogs were barking. and in that moment i felt -- because i knew, i knew what had happened. i felt completely weak, like i

was -- i didn't -- i was going to collapse right there and then in the doorway with the sunlight shining down and it was just really overwhelming. but that maybe lasted a fraction of a second and i sprinted ahead out of the house. i remember seeing the neighbors coming out. i continued running down the road, and that's when i saw the smoke. it was like a tower of, a tower of thick, black tumbling smoke. i've never seen anything like it. the road itself was on fire. trees on the side of the road were on fire. but i couldn't see the car. it was just bits of plastic and bits of flesh all over the ground. it was -- it wasike being in a war zone really. and at a point, i couldn't figure out where the car was, so

i followed the smoke and that's when i saw this big ball of fire. that was the car,ometely engulfed in flames. you coul't even see the dy. i ran to it and that's -- i just couldn't see -- there was nothing in the car. there was nothing in the car. it was just fire. and after, after running around the car, figuring out -- trying to figure out a way to get in and get my -- i stick my hand in. i don't know what i was trying to do. i realized, i realized that was over right there and then. >> such a horrifying and horrendous story. we see the beautiful picture of your mother as you're speaking. and she dedicated her whole life to this fight against corruption, against dirty politics, dirty money, and to

uphold human rights. you must believe its progress, that investigators are actually arrested, people who actually pulled the trigger, so to speak, is that right, paul? >> yes. so, of course, it's a big step in the investigation, but the fact is that our mother over her 30-year career investigated political corruption. she investigated crime and corruption at the highest level of the maltese government and state. so, i mean, these arrests, it's obvious to us and everyone who observed the story is three common criminals and they are completely unknown to our mother. they never are featured in any of her 20,000 pl$20,000 plus bl any of h -- columns. the people who placed the bomb, other people had noticed to kill

her. the people who our mother investigated. >> can i play for you a sound bite from an interview i did with prime minister muscat in the aftermath of your mother's murder and he pledged that the very people you want to find would be found. listen to this. >> there will be absolutely no impunity for anyone. this is a country where rule of law reigns supreme and i will make sure that justice is done, and there will be absolutely no impunity for anyone, be it from any part of the political spectrum if there is politics involved in this or from any other sector. >> we know it was an unequivocal public pledge. are you satisfied with the way the government is pursuing this investigation? >> no. even in that clip, it's really disturbing because to me it looks as though he can't hide his delight. you see his face turning into a

kind of half smile almost. it's just really disturbing. >> do you really believe the prime minister or his people wanted your mother dead? >> i have no problem believing that. i mean, these people spend the last five years harassing our mother relentlessly. they sued her for liable, criminal defamation, they harassed her financially. they froze her bank accounts. they targeted us, her family. i mean, they did literally every single thing they could until we got to this point. and another thing about the prime minister is he said mall th -- malta is a country where we have the rule of law. obviously not. to think what happened to our mother was an aberration, because it was spectacularly ugly, that it came out of nowhere and this s is something that doesn't typically happen in a european member state in 2017.

there was 30 years of that kind of harassment, 30 years of the authorities that were meant to protect our mother actually mobilized to target her, to harass her. the police force, government, state, everything, until we got to this point. >> the question is do you feel sa in malta, being public coming on global and u.s. television to put your concerns about the investigation, about high-level officials, do you feel safe? >> i don't feel -- i am a journalist, too, but the way we were all raised by our mother was to be fearless in what we did because that's how she was. so, it's only when people tell me -- it's only when people remind me, really, don't forget that you're at risk. listen, don't forget that you shouldn't go back.

experienced journalists, security advisors, people working for the magistrate, they all tell us the same thing. >> i understand investigators want your mother's last tablet or laptop, what she was writing on, and you have said that even if you had it, you wouldn't turn it over. >> of course, not. it would be extremely irresponsible to put more lives at risk. it's the last thing that our mother would have wanted. >> because in that tablet would have been all the sources and people that she was working with? >> anything that she used would be -- >> what do you think it could be, how did it disappear?did sh? >> i didn'tee what my mother wasarrying when she left the house because i had my back turned towards the door. and i don't know where the laptop is, but even if i did, i

would have never -- i would have never handed it over because -- i mean, if the police were to have come to me and i have the laptop in my possession, i would have destroyed it. i would have done my best to destroy it because i think that the lives of -- the lives of my mother's sources are more important than the government's thirst for convenient general against them. >> so, very, very tragically, your mother's assassination fits a very ugly and terrifying pattern for many journalists around the world. and i just wanted to ask you, what to you at this point would justice look like? what do you want the authorities to deliver? what can they do to at least provide some closure and some justice? >> so, we, we want complete

justice for our mother. we want to know who did the killing. we don't just want the three men who have been a rained or low-level criminal associates. we want the mastermind. we want to know the reason as to why o motr was killed. we want to know who ordered it, who commissioned it, why, everything. their links to government, to the prime minister, a completely open and trans parent public inquiry. i mean, you're making an accusation here. they're links to -- >> if they have links to the government. again, our mother investigated political corruption. it's hard to see this coming from anywhere outside malta's political system. >> so, it's so sad. it's so tragic. what do you want daphne's project to achieve? what do you want her legacy to

be? >> i think even though the entire, the entire project hasn't -- it's stories are still coming out of it, i think what the first batch of stories has done is humanize her to an audience that was only used to see propaganda about her. and this has left them bewildered. they don't know how to deal with it. they have an image of her as a witch, someone subhuman or not human. they were made to hate her. so, now that they're seeing a human being, they just don't know what to do. i think that it has -- the daphne project has succeeded in that objective at least. and also because the journalists themselves are taking up her investigation. that feels like a taste of

justice to that we're getting there. >> that she will not be silenced? >> exactly. >> matthew and paul, thank you so much for sharing this time. so thank you. >> thank you. >> remembering daphne caruana galizia, six months after her murder. now, we sought reaction from malta's prime minister and his office told us in a statement, quote, no prime minister would want a journalist to be murdered under any circumstances. said that daphne caruana galizia launched politically motivated attacks against him, but he only resorted to legal means in extreme circumstances. and that's it for our program tonight. thanks for watching amanpour on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪