Pompeo expresses hope of sending U.S. delegation to DPRK soon

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he was hopeful the United States would send a delegation to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the coming weeks, though talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un ended without yielding any agreement between the two countries.

"I am hopeful, although I have no commitment yet, that we will be back at it, that I'll have a team in Pyongyang in the next couple weeks. I'm continuing to work to find those places where there's a shared interest," Pompeo told the Iowa Farm Bureau.

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un (L) talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, February 28, 2019. /VCG Photo

The Hanoi summit ended without agreement and each side gave a different reason as to why the meeting was cut short.

Trump told reporters that the DPRK wanted all of the sanctions lifted in their entirety while DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho disputed that claim during a news conference, saying Pyongyang had asked only for a partial lifting of the sanctions in exchange for dismantling its main nuclear site at Yongbyon.

"We've been engaged in the fundamental proposition of trying to convince Chairman Kim, who is 35 years old, that the historic strategy which said that, absent nuclear weapons, North Korea (the DPRK) will fall, that the government will fall, that it was their only way of achieving security for their country. And they trust that. They're confident that that will protect them," Pompeo said Monday.

Reaction of neighboring countries

China earlier reiterated its stance on the DPRK-U.S. relations, calling for dialogue and urging the two sides to meet each other halfway and push forward the political settlement process of the Korean Peninsula issue on the basis of mutual respect.

The Republic of Korea (ROK) President Moon Jae-in Monday also called for a quick resumption of meetings between Kim and Trump, saying that he believed the two sides would reach an agreement "in the end."

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks in Budapest, Hungary, February 11, 2019. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters