Inter-Korean rapprochement must not outpace denuclearisation — US
WASHINGTON: Any rapprochement between North and South Korea must move forward “in tandem” with efforts to denuclearise the peninsula, and cannot come sooner, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday.
The State Department’s point man on North Korea, Stephen Biegun, met Tuesday in Washington with South Korea’s special representative for peace and security on the peninsula, Lee Do-hoon, to “further strengthen our close coordination,” Pompeo told reporters.
Washington and Seoul have launched a working group to “make sure that we don’t talk past each other,” the secretary of state noted.
The talks in the US capital came as Seoul and Pyongyang appear to be moving ahead with their rapprochement more quickly than the Americans and North Koreans are making headway on disarming Kim Jong Un’s regime.
“We have made clear to the Republic of Korea that we want to make sure that peace on the peninsula and the de nuclear is at ion of North Korea aren’t lagging behind the increase in the amount of inner relationship between the two Koreas,” Pompeo said.
“We view them as tandem, as moving forward together. We view them as important parallel processes, and that working group is designed to make sure they continue to remain that way.”
Since the historic summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, talks on denuclearisation have stalled, with meetings either deemed unproductive, pushed back or cancelled altogether.
A second leaders’ summit is expected to take place in early 2019, according to Washington. — AFP