US State Department denies North Korea stance softening – Reuters

As reported by Reuters, the US State Department is denying that the US is softening its stance towards North Korea as US State Secretary Mike Pompeo heads to Pyongyang for continued talks with North Korea’s regime.

Key quotes

“The State Department on Thursday denied that the United States had softened its approach toward North Korea’s denuclearization.  

“Nothing could be further from the truth. Our policy toward North Korea has not changed,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on the way to Pyongyang.  “We are committed to a denuclearized 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,” she added.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday he got along “very well” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their June 12 summit.  “I really believe that he sees a different future for North Korea. I hope that’s true. If that’s not true, we’ll go back to the other way,” Trump said aboard Air Force One as he flew to Montana.

At the Singapore summit, Kim made a broad commitment to “work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but has made no mention of how or when Pyongyang might give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States and its allies.  

Ahead of the Singapore summit, Pompeo said Trump would reject anything short of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.”  But following talks on Sunday between U.S. envoy Sung Kim and North Korean counterparts, this “CVID” language appears to have disappeared from the State Department lexicon.”