Tokyo: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped to make progress on denuclearisation and a second US-North Korean summit as he kicked off an Asian trip on Saturday that will feature a meeting with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.
Pompeo arrived in Tokyo on the first leg of a tour that will take him to Pyongyang on Sunday for a fourth time as the contours of a possibly historic US-North Korea deal take shape.
Speaking alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Pompeo said the two historic allies would have a “fully coordinated, unified view of how to proceed, which will be what is needed if we are going to be successful on denuclearising North Korea.”
Japan, which has seen North Korean missiles fly over its territory and been threatened with annihilation, has historically taken a hard line on Pyongyang and stressed the need to maintain pressure on the regime.
More recently, however, Abe has said the only way to improve strained ties is a face-to-face meeting with former international pariah Kim.
It was important for the US and Japan to be “fully in sync” before he headed to Pyongyang, insisted Pompeo.
He also promised to bring up with Kim the matter of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago, which is a huge issue domestically in Japan. Abe called for “coordination” on this issue and also on North Korea’s nuclear threat.
On the plane over, Pompeo said his aim was to “develop sufficient trust” between Washington and Pyongyang to inch towards peace. “Then we are also going to set up the next summit,” said Pompeo.
However, he played down expectations for a major breakthrough.
“I doubt we will get it nailed but begin to develop options for both location and timing for when Chairman Kim will meet with the president again. Maybe we will get further than that,” said the top US diplomat.
In June, US President Donald Trump met Kim in Singapore for the first-ever summit between the countries. No sitting US president has ever visited North Korea.
Since the Singapore summit, which yielded what critics charge was only a vague commitment by Kim towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, the road towards warmer ties has been bumpy.
Trump scrapped a previously planned trip by his top diplomat to Pyongyang after what he said was insufficient progress towards implementing the terms of the Singapore declaration. But the unorthodox US president has since declared himself “in love” with the strongman in Pyongyang. — AFP
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