Pompeo to head to North Korea over doubts about its intentions
FALSE CONFIDENCE? Trump says nuclear talks with Pyongyang ‘going well’, dismisses Democrats’ criticism
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo will leave for North Korea on Thursday seeking agreement on a plan for the country’s denuclearisation, despite mounting doubts about Pyongyang’s willingness to abandon a weapons programme that threatens the United States and its allies.
In announcing Pompeo’s travel plans on Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the US was “continuing to make progress” in talks with North Korea. She declined to confirm or deny recent media reports of intelligence assessments saying North Korea has been expanding its weapons capabilities.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that talks with North Korea were “going well”, tweeting that North Korea has conducted “no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months.”
“All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!” he tweeted.
The state department has said that Pompeo would head on Saturday from Pyongyang to Tokyo, where he would discuss North Korean denuclearisation with Japanese and South Korean leaders.
It will be Pompeo’s first visit to North Korea since the June 12 summit in Singapore between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, at which the North Korean leader agreed to “work toward denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
The joint summit statement, however, gave no details on how or when Pyongyang might give up its weapons. US officials have since been trying to flesh out details to produce an agreement that might live up to Trump’s portrayal of the outcome.
The US goal remained “the final, fully-verified denuclearisation of (North Korea), as agreed to by Chairman Kim in Singapore,” a state department spokeswoman said.
But experts say there is no proof North Korea’s halt of nuclear and missile tests means the North will take concrete steps to give up such weapons. They also say the US has an unrealistic approach to North Korea’s denuclearisation.
On Sunday, a US delegation met with North Korean counterparts at the border between North and South Korea to discuss next steps on the implementation of the summit declaration, the state department said.
“We had good meetings... the secretary of state will be there later this week to continue those discussions,” Sanders told a White House briefing.
The announcement about Pompeo’s trip to North Korea comes days after he called external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to inform her about his decision to postpone the July 6 India-US 2+2 dialogue in Washington.
The US had cited “unavoidable reasons” for the sudden postponement of the dialogue.
The US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, who was in India last week, had clarified that the postponement of the dialogue had “nothing to do” with the Indo-US bilateral ties.
WASHINGTON:
Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump displayed an unexpected bonhomie in Singapore. Kim's vague promise of denuclearistion — one made by North Korea numerous times in the past — led Trump to give Kim security assurances and announce the suspension of military drills with South Korea
US officials have said that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile. They cited preparations to deceive the US about the number of its nuclear warheads and the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nukes
An analysis of recent satellite photos indicated North Korea is completing a major expansion of a factory in the northeast that produces key parts of nuclear-capable missiles North Korea has shut down its main nuclear testing site and has released three US detainees. But experts say nothing it has done is consequential enough to be seen as a sign that the country is willing to fully surrender its nuclear weapons US secretary of state Mike Pompeo will have to coax significant reciprocal steps from North Korea that would firmly lock the country into a process of disarmament. The state department expects that the disarmament steps will take six to 12 months