Resolve to denuclearise may falter, says n. korea

Kim made commitments to ‘work toward denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’ but offered no details of when he might dismantle the weapons programme.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a second day of talks in North Korea on Saturday in an attempt to agree details on dismantling the North’s nuclear programme after both sides said they had things to “clarify” from the previous day.

Pompeo spent his first night in the North Korean capital in three visits so far this year before leaving the government guest house where he stayed to make a secure phone call to update US President Donald Trump on the talks.

He then sat down again with Kim Yong Chol, the top North Korean party official and former spy agency chief with whom he played a key role in arranging the summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on 12 June.

Kim Yong Chol said at the start of the meeting the two had had “very serious discussion on very important matters yesterday”. He joked that, as a result, Pompeo “might have not slept well last night” at the prestigious Paekhwawon, or 100 Flowers Garden, guest house. According to a pool report from US reporters travelling with him, Pompeo replied: “Director Kim, I slept just fine. We did have a good set of conversations yesterday. I appreciate that and I look forward to our continued conversations today as well.”

Pompeo reiterated that Trump was “committed to a brighter future for North Korea”.

“So the work that we do, the path toward complete denuclearisation, building a relationship between our two countries, is vital for a brighter North Korea and the success that our two presidents demand of us,” Pompeo said.

Kim agreed that the work was important. “There are things that I have to clarify,” he said. Pompeo responded: “There are things that I have to clarify as well.”

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Pompeo and his staff later held a working lunch with their North Korean counterparts.

She said progress had been made but gave no details. Nauert also said Pompeo had been “very firm” on three basic goals: the complete denuclearisation of North Korea, security assurances, and the repatriation of US remains from the 1950-53 Korean War.

“He’s spoken about every element of the agreement from Singapore,” she told reporters, according to a pool report from Pyongyang.

She said there had been no softening in the US positions, although she would not explain why the department no longer defines its aim as “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” (CVID).

“Our policy hasn’t changed,” she said several times when asked about CVID. “Our expectation is exactly what the president and Kim Jong Un jointly agreed to in Singapore, and that is the denuclearisation of North Korea.”

Pompeo left Pyongyang for Tokyo at 4:26 p.m. local time (0726 GMT).

Meanwhile, North Korea expressed regret on Saturday over the attitude of US negotiators during talks to work out details on how to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula as agreed to by their leaders in their recent summit meeting.

In a statement issued by a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman and carried by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea lashed out at the US for seeking “unilateral and forced denuclearisation” from Pyongyang.

The statement came hours after Pompeo wrapped up his trip to Pyongyang.

The North statement con- tradicted the version of events given by Pompeo just hours before. He had said progress was made during the talks. It was the first time he had visited North Korea since the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un summit. The North’s spokesman said: “We expected that the US side would come with productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-US summit and (we) considered providing something that would correspond to them. “The US just came out with such unilateral and robber-like denuclearization demands as CVID, declaration and verification that go against the spirit of the North-US summit meeting,” he added, calling the talks “really disappointing”.