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US-NKOREA-SKOREA-JAPAN LEAD
N. Korea’s Kim knows denuclearisation must be ‘quick’: Pompeo
SEOUL, June 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – North Korea’s Kim Jong Un understands
that denuclearisation must happen “quickly”, US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said Thursday, warning there will be no sanctions relief for Pyongyang
until the process is complete.
Pompeo said Washington remained committed to the “complete, verifiable and
irreversible” denuclearisation of North Korea, after the joint statement from
the US-North Korea summit in Singapore drew criticism for lack of detail on
the key issue.
“We believe that Kim Jong Un understands the urgency… that we must do
this quickly,” he said of the effort to have North Korea abandon its nuclear
weapons.
Washington’s top diplomat is in Seoul to brief his South Korean and
Japanese counterparts on Tuesday’s historic talks — the first between
sitting leaders of the two countries — after which a triumphant President
Donald Trump said the world can “sleep well”.
Following the summit, Trump said the US would halt its “provocative” joint
military drills with South Korea as long as negotiations are ongoing with the
North, an announcement that caught Seoul by surprise.
But the US-South Korea alliance remains “as robust as ever”, Seoul’s
foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha said at a press conference with Pompeo and
Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono.
Pompeo is scheduled to fly to Beijing to meet his Chinese counterpart
after the meetings in Seoul.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 0942 hrs