US to work with Japan on N. Korea denuclearisation
tokyo — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged on Saturday that the Trump administration’s effort to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons would be fully coordinated with allies Japan and South Korea, as he prepared to travel to Pyongyang under pressure to produce tangible progress toward that goal.
Pompeo met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on the eve of his fourth visit to North Korea, during which he’ll be looking to arrange a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jongun and plot a path forward on denuclearisation. Japan, notably, has been wary of Trump’s initiative, fearing it could affect its longstanding security relationship with the US. Pompeo told Abe that it is important for him to hear from the Japanese leader “so we have a fully coordinated and unified view” and vowed to raise the cases of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea when he sees Kim in Pyongyang on Sunday. Pompeo will then travel to South Korea and China to review the negotiations. “It is important for us to hear from you as I travel to Pyongyang to make sure that we are fully in sync with respect to missile programmes, (chemical and biological weapons) programmes,” Pompeo told the Japanese premier.
Pompeo’s diplomatic offensive comes as Trump presses to meet with Kim for a second time after their June summit in Singapore produced a vague agreement on denuclearisation with few, if any, specifics. —
My mission is to make sure that we understand what each side is truly trying to achieve ... and how we can deliver against the commitments that were made. Mike Pompeo,
United States Secretary of State