WASHINGTON: The United States is prepared to offer North Korea security assurances if it makes the strategic choice to give up its nuclear weapons, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. Pompeo cast US President Donald Trump’s June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un as a test of the North Korean leader’s commitment to change his country’s direction. The US price for normalisation — complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation — is one Pyongyang has never before been willing to pay, regarding nuclear weapons as guarantee of the regime’s survival.
On Saturday, North Korea said it will destroy its nuclear test site later this month — a gesture Trump quickly hailed as “very smart and gracious.” Pompeo, who has met twice with the North Korean leader to discuss the summit, said he was “convinced” Kim shared US goals. “We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure,” Pompeo said. “This has been the trade-off that has been pending for 25 years. No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible. “Our eyes are wide open with respect to the risks, but it is our fervent hope that Chairman Kim wants to make a strategic change,” he said. — AFP
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