Mike Pompeo wraps up two-day trip to Pyongyang
- 6 years ago
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with officials in Pyongyang on Friday and Saturday to talk about how to implement the agreement reached on June 12 in Singapore.
But the two sides seem to feel differently about how the latest meeting went.
Our Kim Mok-yeon reports.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrapped up his two-day trip to Pyongyang, after a second round of talks Saturday evening with Kim Yong-chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea's Workers' Party's Central Committee.
Soon after the discussions, Secretary Pompeo said that they were mostly productive.
"We had many hours of productive conversations. These are complicated issues but we made progress on almost all of the central issues. Some places a great deal of progress. Other places, there's still more work to be done."
Pompeo said the two sides agreed to hold discussions on July 12 on the repatriation of the remains of Americans killed in the Korean War.
And, he said, they also discussed "modalities," as he put it, for the destruction of a missile testing facility in the North.
However, his North Korean counterparts apparently came out of the meeting with a different view.
The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported, citing an unnamed foreign ministry official, that the United States was seeking Pyongyang's denuclearization in a way that was "unilateral" and "forced."
The official expressed disappointment over the outcome of the talks, claiming that Washington did not meet Pyongyang's expectations of productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-U.S. summit.
During his latest visit, Pompeo was not able to meet with Kim Jong-un, but instead he and his North Korean counterpart did exchange letters written by their countries' leaders to each other.
American media have reported on the outcome of the talks as unsatisfactory, with the Washington Post saying that the KCNA's report evidently contradicts Pompeo's comments that a breakthrough was made.
The New York Times also reported that Pompeo's third visit to Pyongyang was the least productive so far.
Kim Mok-yeon, Arirang News.
But the two sides seem to feel differently about how the latest meeting went.
Our Kim Mok-yeon reports.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrapped up his two-day trip to Pyongyang, after a second round of talks Saturday evening with Kim Yong-chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea's Workers' Party's Central Committee.
Soon after the discussions, Secretary Pompeo said that they were mostly productive.
"We had many hours of productive conversations. These are complicated issues but we made progress on almost all of the central issues. Some places a great deal of progress. Other places, there's still more work to be done."
Pompeo said the two sides agreed to hold discussions on July 12 on the repatriation of the remains of Americans killed in the Korean War.
And, he said, they also discussed "modalities," as he put it, for the destruction of a missile testing facility in the North.
However, his North Korean counterparts apparently came out of the meeting with a different view.
The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported, citing an unnamed foreign ministry official, that the United States was seeking Pyongyang's denuclearization in a way that was "unilateral" and "forced."
The official expressed disappointment over the outcome of the talks, claiming that Washington did not meet Pyongyang's expectations of productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-U.S. summit.
During his latest visit, Pompeo was not able to meet with Kim Jong-un, but instead he and his North Korean counterpart did exchange letters written by their countries' leaders to each other.
American media have reported on the outcome of the talks as unsatisfactory, with the Washington Post saying that the KCNA's report evidently contradicts Pompeo's comments that a breakthrough was made.
The New York Times also reported that Pompeo's third visit to Pyongyang was the least productive so far.
Kim Mok-yeon, Arirang News.