North Korea says talks were ‘regrettable’
PYONGYANG, North Korea— High-level talks between the United States and North Korea appeared to hit a snag on Saturday as Pyongyang said a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been “regrettable” and accused Washington of making “gangster-like” demands to pressure the country into abandoning its nuclear weapons.
The statement from the North came just hours after Pompeo wrapped up two days of talks with senior North Korean officials without meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but with commitments for new discussions on denuclearization and the repatriation of the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War.
While Pompeo offered a relatively positive assessment of his meetings, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the U.S. betrayed the spirit of last month’s summit between President Donald Trump and Kim by making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands on “CVID,” or the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.
It said the outcome of the followtalks was “very concerning” because it has led to a “dangerous phase that might rattle our willingness for denuclearization that had been firm.”
There has been growing skepticism in the U.S. over how serious Kim is about giving up his nuclear arsenal, and both sides have said they needed clarity on the parameters of an agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula that Trump and Kim reached in Singapore.
“We had expected that the U.S. side would offer constructive measures that would help build trust based on the spirit of the leaders’ summit … we were also thinking about providing reciprocal measures,” said the statement, released by an unnamed spokesman and carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“However, the attitude and stance the United States showed in the first high-level meeting (between the countries) was no doubt regrettable,” the spokesman said. “Our expectations and hopes were naive it could be called foolish.”
According to the spokesman, the North raised the issue of a possible declaration to formally end the 195053 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice and not a peace treaty, but the United States came up with a variety of “conditions and excuses” to delay a declaration. The spokesman also downplayed the significance of the United States suspending its military exercises with South Korea, saying the North made a larger concession by blowing up the tunnels at its nuclear test site.
In criticizing the talks with Pompeo, however, the North carefully avoided attacking Trump, saying “we wholly maintain our trust toward President Trump,” but also that Washington must not allow “headwinds” against the “wills of the leaders.”
In comments to reporters before leaving Pyongyang, Pompeo said his conversations with senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol had been “productive,” conducted “in good faith” and that “a great deal of progress” had been made in some areas. He stressed that “there’s still more work to be done” in other areas, much of which would be done by working groups that the two sides have set up to deal with specific issues.
Pompeo said a Pentagon team would be meeting with North Korean officials on or about July 12 at the border between North and South Korea to discuss the repatriation of remains and that working-level talks would be held soon on the destruction of North Korea’s missile engine testing facility.
Lee reported from Tokyo. Kim TongHyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed.