US seeks NoKor denuclearization by 2021
Pompeo invites NoKor counterpart to meet in NY
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The United States has expressed readiness to resume talks with North Korea after Pyongyang on Wednesday pledged to dismantle its key missile facilities and suggested it would close its main Yongbyon nuclear complex if Washington took unspecified actions.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had invited North Korea’s foreign minister to meet in New York next week, with the aim of completing its denuclearization by January 2021, after a Pyongyang summit between the leaders of the two Koreas.
The US appeared eager to seize on commitments by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in his talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in even as critics said the steps did little to put Pyongyang on a course for irreversible denuclearization.
North Korea will allow experts from “concerned countries” to watch the closure of its missile engine testing site and launch pad at Tongchangri, Moon said at a joint news conference with Kim after their meeting in the North Korean capital.
North Korea will also take additional steps such as closing its main Yongbyon nuclear complex if the US undertook unspecified reciprocal measures, Moon added.
The sudden revival of diplomacy followed weeks of doubts in US President Donald Trump’s administration about whether North Korea was willing to negotiate in good faith after a June summit between Trump and Kim yielded few tangible results.
The January 2021 completion date was the most specific deadline set in what is expected to be a long process of trying to get the North to end its nuclear program, which may threaten US allies South Korea and Japan as well as the US homeland.
In addition to inviting North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho to meet when both are in New York next week for the annual United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders, Pompeo said Washington invited Pyongyang’s representatives to meet the US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, in Vienna at the “earliest opportunity.”
China, North Korea’s most important economic backer and diplomatic ally, said it warmly welcomed the agreement reached in Pyongyang and strongly supported it.
“We absolutely cannot let this hard-to-come-by opportunity for peace slip away once again,” the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councilor Wang Yi, said in a statement.
Some US officials were deeply skeptical.
Speaking before Pompeo’s announcement, two senior US officials involved in US-North Korea policy voiced fears Kim was trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.
At the summit, the two Koreas agreed on plans to resume economic cooperation, including working to reconnect rail and road links. They agreed as well to restart a joint factory park in a border city of Kaesong and tours to the North’s Mount Kumgang resort, when conditions are met.
US officials suggested Kim was trying to ease the economic pressure on him to curb his nuclear programs and to undercut the rationale for US troops being based in South Korea by improving relations with Seoul.
The US has some 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter North Korean attack. Pyongyang has long sought their withdrawal and Trump has questioned their rationale and cost.