Pompeo to meet top N.Korean official in New York
Washington: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to New York on Thursday to meet a top North Korean official, the State Department has announced.
Pompeo and North Korean general Kim Yong-chol, “will discuss making progress on all four pillars of the Singapore Summit joint statement, including achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of (North Korea)”, State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, said on Monday.
Pompeo, who will be accompanied by US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, on Sunday played down North Korea’s recent threat to resume its nuclear programme if Washington does not make concessions in the bilateral dialogue between the two nations, reports Efe news.
The objective of the meeting would be to prepare for a second summit between the leaders of both countries, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, to resume Pyongyang’s denuclearization talks that began during the historic June meeting in Singapore.
Trump has expressed his willingness to schedule the second summit soon, but his National Security Adviser John Bolton, recently pointed out that the meeting could be delayed to the beginning of 2019, which would delay the dialogue process.
Pompeo visited Pyongyang a month ago to prepare for that summit and met Kim Jong-un, but gave no sign that the meeting had produced great progress towards a second meeting of the leaders.
