After KimTrump summit, US reassures Asian allies
SOBER NOTE Sanctions to go only after North’s denuclearisation, says Pompeo BEIJING:
The United States and its Asian allies worked on Thursday to paper over any semblance of disagreement over President Donald Trump’s concession to Kim Jong Un that the US will halt military exercises with South Korea, with Trump’s top diplomat insisting the president hadn’t backed down from his firm line on North Korea’s nukes.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, meeting with top South Korean and Japanese diplomats, put a more sober spin on several moves by Trump after his summit with Kim in Singapore fueled unease in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. He said Trump’s curious claim that the North’s nuclear threat was over was issued with “eyes wide open,” and brushed off a North Korean state media report suggesting Trump would grant concessions even before the North fully rids itself of nuclear weapons.
“We’re going to get denuclearisation,” Pompeo said in the South Korean capital. “Only then will there be relief from the sanctions.”
Pompeo flew from Seoul to China’s capital, Beijing, later Thursday for a meeting with President Xi Jinping, whose country is believed to wield considerable influence with North Korea as its chief ally and economic lifeline. Pompeo also met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who described the Singapore summit as of “great historic significance” that could lead to “enduring peace.”
Pompeo said there was still a risk that denuclearization might not be achieved and added there “is still more work to be done by China and the United States to get to that outcome.”
At a daily briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated China’s support for a political settlement, while also pointing to an eventual lifting of UN Security Council economic sanctions.
“We believe that the sanctions themselves are not the end,” Geng said.
China has been praised by Trump for ramping up economic pressure on the North that the US believes helped coax Kim to the negotiating table.
On the joint U.S.-South Korea drills that Trump — after meeting Kim — said would be terminated, Pompeo emphasized a key caveat: If the mercurial North Korean leader stops negotiating in good faith, the “war games” will be back on.
The words of reassurance from Pompeo came as diplomacy continued at an intense pace after Tuesday’s summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting American president and North Korea’s leader in six decades of hostility.