PYONGYANG - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted Saturday that two days of talks with his North Korean counterpart on dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal had been “very productive”.
But, briefing reporters before flying on to Tokyo, he offered few new details as to how North Korea would honour its commitment to “denuclearise” in exchange for US security guarantees.
“These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues, some places a great deal of progress, other places there’s still more work to be done,” he said.
Pompeo spoke after emerging from more than eight hours of talks over two days with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s right-hand man Kim Yong Chol in a Pyongyang diplomatic compound.
Last month, at a historic summit with US President Donald Trump, Kim agreed to “work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” in return for security guarantees and an end to a dangerous stand-off with US forces. Trump hailed this as a successful resolution of the crisis, but the short joint statement was not a detailed roadmap to disarmament and it fell to Pompeo to follow up and put meat on the bones of the sparse commitment.
This quest brought him back to Pyongyang on Friday for his third visit and first overnight stay, and he left en route to brief his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in an upbeat frame of mind.
“We talked about what the North Koreans are continuing to do and how it’s the case that we can get our arms around achieving what Chairman Kim and President Trump both agreed to, which is the complete denuclearisation of North Korea,” he said.
“No-one walked away from that, they’re still equally committed. Chairman Kim is still committed, I had a chance to speak to President Trump this morning.
“I know my counterpart spoke with Chairman Kim during the course of our negotiations as well. We had productive, good-faith negotiations.” (AFP)