Pompeo, ROK meet on DPRK denuclearization

WASHINGTON — US State Department said on Thursday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has held talks with Republic of Korea Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha in Warsaw to discuss their ongoing efforts to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

During a meeting on the sidelines of the Middle East security conference in Warsaw, Pompeo and Kang discussed the denuclearization of the peninsula, updated each other’s engagements with Pyongyang, reaffirmed the alliance of the two countries, and expressed their commitment to the US-ROKJapan trilateral cooperation, according to the State Department.

In an interview with the CBS News the same day, Pompeo revealed that the United States would send a work team to Asia this weekend to prepare for the upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi at the end of February.

“Now it’s time for us to begin the effort to take the step on denuclearization, and I’m hopeful that this summit will deliver that,” Pompeo said.

“We’ll certainly talk about how we … reduce tension, reduce military risks, take down that risk so we can get peace and security on the peninsula as well,” he said after a conference on the Middle East.

“We are aiming to get this as far down the road as we can in what is now a couple of weeks,” Pompeo said.

Stephen Biegun, US special representative for DPRK affairs, last week made a three-day visit to Pyongyang, where he and his DPRK counterpart Kim Hyok-chol had a discussion on advancing the commitments that Trump and Kim made at their Singapore summit last June.