Pompeo dismisses threat to end nuke talks
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to downplay a North Korean warning Friday that Kim Jong Un was considering breaking off nuclear talks with the Trump administration and resuming the country’s nuclear and missile tests.
Mr. Pompeo said that during last month’s nuclear summit in Hanoi, Mr. Kim had assured President Donald Trump “on multiple occasions” that he would not lift a self-imposed moratorium on the tests.
“So that’s Chairman Kim’s word,” Mr. Pompeo said at the State Department. “We have every expectation that he will live up to that commitment.”
The Hanoi summit collapsed without an agreement and both leaders left emptyhanded.
Mr. Pompeo spoke several hours after North Korea’s deputy foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, told foreign journalists and diplomats in Pyongyang that Mr. Kim would decide “in a short period of time” whether to resume tests.
North Korea has not launched a ballistic missile or detonated a nuclear device since 2017, and Mr. Trump has cited the pause as one of the main achievements of his rapprochement with Mr. Kim.
Ms. Choe, who accompanied Mr. Kim to the Hanoi summit, said the Trump administration had thrown away a “golden opportunity” and that without concessions from Washington, North Korea may pull out of talks.
“We have neither the intention to compromise with the U.S. in any form nor much less the desire or plan to conduct this kind of negotiation,” Mr. Choe said, according to the Associated Press.
Ms. Choe criticized Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, by name, saying they had created “an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust” that undermined cooperation.
She avoided blaming Mr. Trump, saying relations between the two leaders was “still good and the chemistry is mysteriously wonderful.”
Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton are known to be deeply skeptical of Mr. Kim’s intentions, and were among the senior Trump aides who worried the president might offer deep concessions in Hanoi to strike a deal.
Asked whether the personal attack would hurt his efforts to negotiate, Mr. Pompeo noted that North Korean state media had called him “gangsterlike” after a visit to the capital, Pyongyang, in July. Ms. Choe repeated the barb Friday, describing the U.S. stance in Hanoi as “gangsterlike.”