Pompeo firm on denuclearization

BEIJING — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Asian powers Thursday that President Donald Trump was sticking to demands that North Korea surrender its nuclear weapons, as he sought to hold together a fragile consensus on maintain- ing tough sanctions against the North despite Trump’s declaration that it was “no longer a nuclear threat.”

At a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, Pompeo softened some of the president’s recent comments — but did not retract them — and insisted that United Nations sanctions would remain in place until North Korea had accomplished “complete denuclearization.”

“We are going to get the complete denuclearization,” Pompeo told reporters. “Only then will there be relief from sanctions.”

He made the same point later Thursday in Beijing, where he met with China’s president, Xi Jinping. But China had already shown signs of breaking ranks on tough enforcement of the sanctions against its neighbor and trading partner, saying that with North Korea now at the negotiating table, they could legitimately be eased.

China did not appear to have budged from that position Thursday. At a news conference alongside China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, Pompeo conceded that the U.N. sanctions had “mechanisms for relief ” and said that “we have agreed at the appropriate time they will be considered.”

But he insisted that time would be after “full denuclearization.”

Wang, who said China was intent on playing “a constructive role” in connection with the North, declined to answer a question about China’s intentions on the sanctions.

Pompeo’s tough stance Thursday — two days after Trump met North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, in Singapore for the first-ever summit between leaders of their two countries — was intended to reassure the United States’ allies Japan and South Korea, and to deny reports in North Korea’s state media that the United States had agreed to ease the sanctions. They were also a clear appeal for cooperation from Beijing.

In a joint statement signed in Singapore, Kim committed to the vague promise of “complete denuclearization” and Trump promised equally vague security assurances. The document was light on details, including when and how North Korea would dismantle its nuclear program and what it would do with its missiles.

North Korean state media Wednesday reported that Trump had agreed to lift sanctions when relations improved and that he had endorsed a “step-by-step” denuclearization process, rather than immediate and total dismantlement.

Adding to global confusion were comments by Trump in the summit’s aftermath that the world can “sleep well tonight” because “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

Pompeo said those remarks were made with “eyes wide open.”