Pompeo back in N. Korea for talks
Haven’t softened — Kim must eliminate nukes, U.S. asserts
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The State Department pushed back Thursday against suggestions that President Donald Trump’s administration has softened its stance on North Korea as the top U.S. diplomat traveled to Pyongyang for crucial nuclear talks.
Spokesman Heather Nauert told journalists accompanying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that U.S. policy has not changed and that, “We are committed to a denuclearized North Korea.”
Pompeo is due in Pyongyang today. He will be pressing for North Korea to take concrete action to back up its broad commitment to “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula made at the June 12 summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
“Looking forward to continuing our work toward the final, fully verified denuclearization of #DPRK, as agreed to by Chairman Kim. Good to have the press along for the trip,” Pompeo tweeted Thursday. DPRK is the abbreviation of the authoritarian nation’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Despite reports that North Korea is continuing to expand facilities related to its nuclear and missile programs and that U.S. intelligence is skeptical about its intentions to give up its weapons, Trump has remained upbeat, tweeting this week, “Many good conversations with North Korea.”
There’s been mixed messaging from the administration before what promises to be a tough negotiation to get Pyongyang to roll back its weapons capabilities.
National security adviser John Bolton, who has expressed hardline views on North Korea, said Sunday that Pompeo will present Pyongyang with a plan to
complete the dismantling of the North’s nuclear and missile programs in one year. On Tuesday, Nauert walked that back, declining to give a timeline. Pompeo himself has previously said the U.S. wanted North Korea to take “major” disarmament steps in the next two years before Trump completes his first term in office.
Recovering the bodies of troops killed in the Korean War is expected to be high on Pompeo’s agenda, after Kim committed during his summit with Trump to the “immediate repatriation” of identified remains. North Korea hadn’t handed over the bodies by the time Pompeo left Washington on Thursday, building pressure on him to broker their release during the trip.
Fresh speculation about soldiers and Marines missing for almost 70 years illustrates how Trump’s agreement with Kim last month raised new issues, even as it left unanswered key questions about how and when North Korea might disarm. The focus on their return gives Kim an emotionally charged bargaining chip to play before discussing any details about dismantling reactors and missiles.
North Korea is holding about 200 sets of remains from among the some 5,300 American military personnel believed still lost in the country, according to Department of Defense estimates. Caskets that the U.S. shipped to South Korea to collect the remains haven’t been filled.
Expectations for the soldiers’ return have been raised by Trump himself, who has touted the agreement amid bipartisan criticism that his unprecedented meeting with Kim failed to establish a framework for the country’s “complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.” The president told reporters after the summit that Kim “was really very gracious” and immediately agreed to return the remains in response to his own spurof-the-moment request.
Trump continued to raise hopes in the subsequent days, telling Fox News that Kim was “giving us back the remains of probably 7,500 soldiers” and supporters in Nevada that North Korea had already handed over 200 sets of remains. Pompeo told U.S. Senate committee June 27 that no exchanges have been made, although he was optimistic they would take place “in the not-too-distant future.”
This will be Pompeo’s third trip to North Korea in three months. He last visited in May ahead of the TrumpKim summit and traveled there secretly in early April while he was director of the CIA.
In the latest goodwill gesture between North and South Korea, the nations held two days of friendly basketball games in Pyongyang.
A capacity crowd of 12,000 applauded as the teams — dressed in white jerseys that read “Peace” and green jerseys that read “Prosperity” — marched onto the court holding hands. Players from the North and South were mixed into teams for Wednesday’s games.
The South Koreans played the North Korean teams Thursday before returning home today.
It remains to be seen how much further the rival Koreas can push their conciliatory steps. The fate of these efforts is ultimately tied to progress in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. If the nuclear talks bog down, it could mean curtains for inter-Korean detente.