PYONGYANG, July 07 (TNS): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in North Korea to press Pyongyang for a \u201cmore detailed commitment\u201d to denuclearization following Kim Jong-un\u2019s historic summit with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The top US diplomat met with Kim Yong-chol, a senior North Korean official who, along with Pompeo, played a key role in arranging last month\u2019s meeting in Singapore.<\/p>\n
Pompeo is accompanied by North Asia experts from the State Department, CIA spy agency and National Security Council and is due to hold talks with senior officials in Pyongyang over denuclearization as well as return of the remains of US troops missing during the Korean war in 1950s.<\/p>\n
Ahead of his visit, Pompeo tweeted: \u201cLooking forward to continuing our work toward the final, fully verified denuclearization of #DPRK, as agreed to by Chairman Kim. Good to have press along for the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then wrote in a Friday Twitter message after a phone contact with Trump in the air: \u201cThe President told me he believes that Chairman Kim sees a different, brighter future for the people of North Korea. We both hope that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNext stop: Pyongyang. I look forward to continuing my meetings with North Korean leaders. There\u2019s much hard work ahead but peace is worth the effort,\u201d his message further read.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s National Security Advisor John Bolton, however, does not believe Pyongyang intends to give of its nuclear or ballistic missile weapons program, US-based press report have said citing officials and experts who have spoken to Bolton.<\/p>\n
This is while Trump has in recent months redeemed Kim, describing him as \u201cvery honorable\u201d and \u201cnice\u201d while insisting that the North is \u201cno longer a nuclear threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pompeo has also stated repeatedly in recent months that Kim is rational. He has also said he believes that North Korea\u2019s young leader is serious about negotiations.<\/p>\n
This is in sharp contrast with Trump\u2019s harsh rhetoric regarding Pyongyang just last year, when he labeled Kim a \u201cmadman\u201d and a murderer of his own people. At the time, Pompeo questioned whether Kim was rational and emphasized, \u201cI am hopeful we will find a way to separate that regime from\u201d its nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n
Trump tweeted earlier this week, even after new reports alleging North\u2019s continued weapons development: \u201cMany good conversations with North Korea \u2014 it is going well! If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!\u201d<\/p>\n
Such statements, analysts say, have made Pompeo\u2019s current mission in Pyongyang even more challenging, since they have let the North Koreans know that Trump \u201cis so deeply invested in dialogue that he will not declare the endeavor a failure anytime soon,\u201d according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorralling the president\u2019s rhetoric on North Korea is only a part of Mr. Pompeo\u2019s challenge on this trip, which includes later stops in Tokyo, Hanoi, Abu Dhabi and Brussels,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the Singapore summit, Pompeo insisted that Trump would reject anything short of \u201ccomplete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization(CVID)\u201d.<\/p>\n
But after Sunday talks between US envoy Sung Kimand and his North Korean counterparts, this \u201cCVID\u201d language appears to have disappeared from the State Department official rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Although it claims that pressure will remain until Pyongyang denuclearizes, in statements this week, it redefined Washington\u2019s objective as \u201cthe final, fully verified denuclearization\u201d of North Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this meeting, Pompeo will probably again say that Kim Jong-un is intelligent and trustworthy, which is truly unfortunate,\u201d said Sung-Yoon Lee of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University as quoted in Times report. \u201cI think we\u2019re headed in the direction of giving up and accepting North Korea as a de facto nuclear state.\u201d<\/p>\n
But State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert insisted that was not the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur policy toward North Korea has not changed,\u201d she said as quoted by the daily. \u201cWe are committed to a denuclearized North Korea, and Secretary Pompeo looks forward to continuing his consultations with North Korean leader to follow up on the commitments made at the Singapore summit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pompeo\u2019s visit to Pyongyang will be closely watched in the region, as he is scheduled to meet with officials from US allies South Korea and Japan in Tokyo on Sunday following his talks with North Koreans.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for South Korea\u2019s presidential office would only say Seoul and Washington were working to formulate \u201cconstructive measures\u201d on North Korea\u2019s denuclearization, according to the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PYONGYANG, July 07 (TNS): US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in North Korea to press Pyongyang for a \u201cmore detailed commitment\u201d to denuclearization following Kim Jong-un\u2019s historic summit with President Donald Trump. The top US diplomat met with Kim Yong-chol, a senior North Korean official who, along with Pompeo, played a key role […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70710,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70708\/revisions\/70710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}