Pompeo meets Japanese, South Korean allies after denuclearization talks with Pyongyang

Kim made broad commitment to work toward denuclearization

TOKYO: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began a series of meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Sunday after North Korea accused him of making “gangster-like” demands during two-days of talks in Pyongyang.

That North Korean assessment contradicted comments made on Saturday by Pompeo, who said he had made progress on “almost all of the central issues.”

At the start of a breakfast meeting with Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono in Tokyo on Sunday, Pompeo did not reply when a reporter asked him to respond to North Korea’s statement.

 “The high-level talks this time brought us in a dangerous situation where we may be shaken in our unshakable will for denuclearization, rather than consolidating trust between the DPRK and the US,” a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency on Saturday.

Before heading to North Korea, Pompeo said he was seeking to “fill in” details on North Korea’s commitments and maintain the momentum towards implementing the agreement from the summit last month in Singapore between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to a pool report.

At the June 12 summit, Kim made a broad commitment to “work toward denuclearization”, but did not give details on how or when he would dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program. Trump pledged a halt to large-scale military drills with neighbouring South Korea during denuclearization talks with North Korea.

Pompeo wanted to agree on at least an initial list of nuclear sites and an inventory that could be checked against the available intelligence, US intelligence officials told Reuters earlier.

Pompeo will hold three-way talks with Kono and South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Wha in Japan later on Sunday. He will also make a courtesy call on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.