Pompeo says second summit possible after talks with Kim
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed to arrange a second leaders summit “as soon as possible,” and discussed potential US monitoring of Pyongyang’s steps toward denuclearization, South Korea’s presidential office said yesterday.
Pompeo said his latest, fourth trip to Pyongyang was “another step forward” to denuclearization and he had a “good, productive conversation” with Kim, but more needed to be done.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in held talks with Pompeo in Seoul after the top US diplomat met with Kim for more than three hours during a short trip to Pyongyang that was aimed at breaking a gridlock in their nuclear negotiations.
Pompeo said he and Kim discussed denuclearization steps to be taken by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the issue of US government monitoring of those actions, which Washington sees as vital, as well as the measures the United States would conduct in return, Moon’s office said.
Pompeo and Kim also agreed to form a working group “at an early date” to discuss the denuclearization process and the second summit, which Kim proposed to US President Donald Trump in a letter last month, according to Moon’s press secretary Yoon Youngchan.
“Secretary Pompeo said he and Chairman Kim concurred that they will hold the second US-North Korea summit as soon as possible,” Yoon said in a statement.
“The two sides also agreed to continue discussions to decide on the detailed timing and location of the second summit.”
While Seoul sounded upbeat, Pompeo struck a more cautious tone.
“As President Trump said, there are many steps along the way and we took one of them today,” Pompeo told Moon. “It was another step forward. So this is, I think, a good outcome for all of us.”
Moon expressed hopes that Pompeo’s trip and the proposed second meeting between Kim and Trump would make “irreversible, decisive progress in terms of denuclearization as well as the peace process.”
Moon had his own third summit with Kim last month in Pyongyang, which was partly intended to help salvage the stumbling negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington, after Trump called off Pompeo’s planned visit to the DPRK in late August citing lack of progress.