SINGAPORE â Mid-level talks between U.S. and North Korean officials have progressed “rapidly” ahead of President Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Monday as those discussions were still taking place.
“Our ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim met today with [North Korean] Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui,” Pompeo told reporters at a press conference Monday evening.
“They are moving quite rapidly and we anticipate they will come to their logical conclusion even more quickly than we anticipated,” he said.
Members of the U.S. and North Korean delegations huddled at the Ritz Carlton hotel for several hours on Monday to discuss the terms of denuclearization.
“North Korea has previously confirmed to us its willingness to denuclearize, and we are eager to see if its words prove sincere,” Pompeo said. He said he is hopeful Tuesday’s summit “will have set the conditions for future productive talks” between Washington and Pyongyang.
Pompeo declined to provide details on what Trump could offer to Kim during their meeting that is now hours away, but said the U.S. is prepared “to take actions that will provide [North Korea with] sufficient certainty that they can be comfortable that denuclearization doesn’t end badly for them.”
“We are not going to conduct these negotiations in the open with the media,” he said, before adding that “unique steps can be taken” to satisfy the Kim regime without providing sanctions relief.
“The ultimate objective we seek from diplomacy with North Korea has not changed,” Pompeo told reporters, claiming that “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korea peninsula is the only outcome that the United States will accept.”
