Pompeo Says U.S. Still Wants North Korea Talks Despite Launches
Pompeo described the missile launches as more a negotiating tactic than a move that would create a rupture.
(Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the door remains open for diplomacy with North Korea even though it launched short-range missiles early Thursday and that he hopes working-level talks between the two countries will begin in the next month or so.
Pompeo described the missile launches as more a negotiating tactic than a move that would create a rupture or lead President Donald Trump to reverse his commitment to talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“Everybody tries to get ready for negotiations and create leverage and create risk for the other side,” Pompeo said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg Television. “We remain convinced that there’s a diplomatic way forward, a negotiated solution to this.”
Pompeo spoke after tensions with North Korea spiked yet again because of the Thursday morning missile launch. The incident, which came soon after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton departed South Korea, again called into question Kim’s commitment to engage in talks to give up his regime’s nuclear program.
Little Headway
After Trump met Kim at the border between North Korea and South Korea on June 30, Pompeo said the U.S. and North Korea would begin talks around the middle of July to test whether Pyongyang is really prepared to give up its nuclear weapons. But the two sides have made little headway since the encounter, and analysts say Pyongyang has only pressed forward on its nuclear program since Trump and Kim first met in Singapore last year.
Pompeo suggested on Thursday that he wasn’t bothered by the delay in working-level talks, saying the two sides needed to have enough conversations to produce “productive dialogue” when they get together.
“President Trump has been incredibly consistent here: We want diplomacy to work,” Pompeo said in the interview. “If it takes another two weeks or four weeks, so be it.”
The question that Pompeo and Steve Biegun, his North Korea envoy, will face in the talks is whether to make significant concessions, such as easing up on sanctions, as North Korea has demanded, to keep the negotiations alive. Officials say North Korea won’t get major sanctions relief until it gives up its nuclear weapons, though they have left the door open to other offers such as humanitarian assistance or opening liaison offices.
In another troubling sign, Pompeo had been expected to cross paths with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Bangkok next week, but Ri now won’t be attending, Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday, citing an unidentified person close to the matter.
In recent days, North Korea has complained about upcoming U.S.-South Korean military exercises and warned that it could reconsider its freeze on more significant weapons tests. State media published reports this week of Kim inspecting a submarine that will be deployed in waters between the peninsula and Japan, a vessel that weapons analysts said appeared large enough to carry ballistic missiles.
While the weapons launched Thursday could threaten all of South Korea and probably violate United Nations sanctions, Trump has in the past said he doesn’t consider shorter-range missiles to be a breach of Kim’s pledge to freeze nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kevin Cirilli in Washington at kcirilli@bloomberg.net;Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert
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