US, ROK commit to close coordination on Korean Peninsula

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had met with South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to coordinate on issues related to the Korean Peninsula, the State Department said Friday.

Pompeo and Cho "affirmed their commitment to close coordination" and "discussed ways to deepen coordination so that inter-Korean cooperation and progress on US-DPRK negotiations toward denuclearization remain aligned," according to a statement issued by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

The official KCNA news agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) reported earlier on Friday that Kim Jong Un, the country's top leader, visited the testing ground of the Academy of Defense Science and supervised the test of a newly developed ultramodern tactical weapon.

In regards to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a press briefing on Thursday, Nauert said: "We have a long way to go. We believe in giving diplomacy a chance."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) shakes hands with South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon during their meeting at the US Department of State in Washington, DC, the US, November 16, 2018. /Xinhua Photo

"When the President (Donald Trump) and Chairman Kim are next able to meet, whenever that does take place - we think probably early in the next year - we expect that those four elements of the Singapore summit will be addressed by the two leaders," she added.

The first-ever DPRK-US summit was held in Singapore on June 12. According to a joint statement signed by Trump and Kim, the United States would provide a security guarantee to the DPRK in return for Pyongyang's commitment to denuclearization.

Following the leaders' meeting, the US-DPRK talks were once stuck in an impasse due to differences over the scale of denuclearization, US sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration.

(Source: Xinhua News Agency)

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency