The official leadership of North Korea stated that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is no longer needed in the talks of denuclearization of the country. Nevertheless, Pompeo said that the diplomatic efforts from the United States will continue toward its goal according to Reuters.
On this, Pompeo was talking with the reporters in Washington, as he said:
“Nothing has changed. We’ll continue to work to negotiate. Still in charge of the team. President Trump’s obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it’ll be my team.’’
Stephen Biegun, the Special Representative for North Korea who leads the U.S. diplomat in this mission, said that the U.S. will continue the efforts to denuclearize North Korea, something that even their leader Kim Jong Un committed to last June.
Pompeo held a news joint news conference after the talks with Japan’s foreign and defense ministers in which he said:
‘’I am convinced we will have a real opportunity to achieve that outcome.’’
When asked by a reporter about the subject, U.S. Secretary of State said that he believed in maintaining diplomatic engagement with North Korea even without providing the sanctions relief it had been demanding.
“We will continue to press North Korea to abandon all of its weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles related programs and facilities. We will continue to enforce all sanctions on North Korea and encourage every country to do so,’’ said Pompeo.
These statements from Pompeo came after the North Korean foreign ministry official in charge of U.S. affairs said that their country no longer wanted to deal with Pompeo and he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature on Thursday.
Only a few hours before that, North Korea announced its first weapons test since the second summit between the leaders of the two countries that happened more than two months ago.
Be the first to comment