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Mike Pompeo under pressure to secure nuclear progress in North Korea visit Mike Pompeo holds nuclear talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang
(1 day later)
Weeks after Donald Trump declared the world a safer place following his historic summit with Kim Jong-un, Mike Pompeo is due to arrive in Pyongyang on Friday amid growing doubts over the regime’s willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons. Mike Pompeo and a US delegation held talks in Pyongyang with North Korean officials on Friday, in an effort to make progress towards disarmament and improved bilateral relations three weeks after Donald Trump’s Singapore summit with Kim Jong-un.
The secretary of state is expected to meet Kim in person in Pyongyang, according to the White House, though details of the agenda have not yet been released. Pompeo, on his third visit to the North Korean capital, is expected to press Kim on a recent report suggesting that far from beginning the process of denuclearisation, North Korea was making “rapid upgrades” to its Yongbyon nuclear complex. The US secretary of state is seeking to persuade the North Korean leadership to take concrete steps that Trump said he was promised in Singapore, including the destruction of a missile engine testing site and the repatriation of remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean war.
Pompeo is also asking for more substantial steps towards disarmament, reportedly including an inventory of the North Korean arsenal of warheads and missiles.
“Our leaders made commitments at the Singapore summit on the complete denuclearisation of North Korea and outlined what a transformed US-DPRK relationship could look like,” Pompeo said on the way to Pyongyang.
“Since the summit the consultations have continued. On this trip I’m seeking to fill in some details on those commitments and continue the momentum toward implementation of what the two leaders promised each other and the world. I expect that the DPRK [North Korea] is ready to do the same.”
He is under time pressure to produce results by August, when the US and South Korea were due to hold joint military exercises. Those exercises were cancelled on Trump’s orders in Singapore as an up-front concession. Adding to the pressure, the president has repeatedly claimed that the testing site has already been destroyed, and that the soldiers’ remains have been sent back, neither of which has happened.
Trump has also made extravagant claims about what was agreed in Singapore. At a rally in Montana on Thursday, he claimed: “We signed a wonderful paper saying they’re going to denuclearise their whole thing. It’s going to all happen.”
In a joint statement with Trump, Kim agreed to move towards “complete denuclearisation” but that has been a stock phrase in North Korean rhetoric since 1992 and signifies a vague and long-term process of multilateral disarmament on the Korean peninsula. Since the Singapore meeting, satellite images and intelligence leaks have suggested that North Korea is upgrading critical parts of its nuclear programme.
Unnamed US intelligence officials also concluded that North Korea does not intend to completely give up its nuclear stockpile.Unnamed US intelligence officials also concluded that North Korea does not intend to completely give up its nuclear stockpile.
Pompeo will also use his visit to consult and reassure Washington’s allies in the region, with meetings planned with Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo on Sunday. Japan has voiced support for the leaders’ Singapore declaration, but reacted cautiously to Trump’s decision to cancel a joint US-South Korea military exercise scheduled for August. In Pyongyang on Friday, Pompeo met Kim Yong-chol, North Korea’s former spy chief and vice-chair of the ruling party, in an extensive guest house in Pyongyang, close to a vast mausoleum where North Korea’s former leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, are buried.
Pompeo must establish how far North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes have advanced before US officials can even attempt to draw up a potential timeline for America’s central demand – their complete, irreversible and verifiable dismantlement [CVID]. Welcoming Pompeo and the US team to the first session of talks, Kim Yong-chol, said: “The more you come, more trust we can build between one another.”
At present, the US has no reliable information on where all of North Korea’s production and testing facilities are located or the size of its ballistic inventory. “Today’s meeting is a really meaningful meeting,” the 73-year-old general said.Pompeo replied: “Yes, I agree I look forward to it and I count on it being very productive.”
In a tweet this week, Trump said Washington and Pyongyang had been having “many good conversations” with North Korea over denuclearisation. “In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months, he said. “All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!” Noting it was his third visit to Pyongyang, he joked: “If I come one more time, I will have to pay taxes here.”
Sceptics have pointed out that Kim no longer believes such tests are necessary now that the North has successful developed an intercontinental ballistic missile, and that dismantling North Korea’s missile and nuclear infrastructure represents a much tougher diplomatic challenge that could take years and cost billions of dollars, if it happens at all. Earlier, Pompeo laughed but did not reply to a question about a South Korean report that he had brought a CD of Elton John’s Rocket Man, as a gift for Kim Jong-un. “Rocket Man” was the nickname Trump gave to Kim when tensions between the two countries reached a peak last year.
“Denuclearisation is no simple task,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, wrote in a commentary. “There is no precedent for a country that has openly tested nuclear weapons and developed a nuclear arsenal and infrastructure as substantial as the one in North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.” The meeting lasted two hours and 45 minutes and Pompeo then had dinner with his senior aides. The next session is due to start at 9am. It is unclear whether Pompeo will meet Kim Jong-un on this trip.
Experts have played down Trump’s upbeat appraisal of his 12 June meeting with Kim in Singapore, where the leaders made a loose commitment to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and agreed goodwill measures such as the possible return of the remains of US soldiers from the 1950-53 Korean war. There were reports before Pompeo began his visit, that he might relax the US demand for complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID), and settle for mutual confidence-building measures that defused tensions without dismantling the North Korean arsenal.
There are signs Pompeo might abandon all-or-nothing demands for CVID and replace them with incremental steps that South Korea has reportedly suggested would be more likely to secure Kim’s cooperation. His spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, denied those reports on Thursday, saying: “Nothing could be further from the truth. Our policy toward North Korea has not changed.
Washington has also come to accept that securing Chinese and Russian cooperation would be easier if it backed away from CVID in early talks with North Korea. “We are committed to a denuclearised North Korea and Secretary Pompeo looks forward to continuing his consultations with North Korean leaders to follow up on the commitments made at the Singapore summit,” Nauert added.
“The choice was either bend it or break it,” a US official told Reuters. Patrick Cronin of the Center for a New American Security said. “The US may be exploring the degree to which he will dismantle major programs within the coming months, and if dropping some language to do this is required, Washington seems willing to do that at this point.” Pompeo will also use his trip to consult and reassure Washington’s allies in the region, with meetings planned with Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo on Sunday. Japan has voiced support for the leaders’ Singapore declaration, but reacted cautiously to Trump’s decision to cancel joint military exercises.
It remains to be seen if Pompeo will present Kim with a timeline for denuclearisation. National security adviser John Bolton’s claim that North Korea could complete that goal in the space of a year was met with widespread scepticism, even by administration officials.
Earlier this week, state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert declined to give a timeframe for North Korea’s denuclearisation, saying “I know some individuals have given timelines; we’re not going to provide a timeline for that. A lot of work is left to be done, certainly. We go into this eyes wide open.”
Mike PompeoMike Pompeo
North KoreaNorth Korea
Asia PacificAsia Pacific
Nuclear weaponsNuclear weapons
Kim Jong-unKim Jong-un
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