Mike Pompeo Sets off for North Korea Nuclear Talks

Local Editor

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left Washington on Thursday bound for Pyongyang to have the latest round of talks with Kim Jong Un on North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Pompeo, along with senior aides, took off shortly after 2:00am and were due in the North Korean capital on Friday, where he is to stay overnight for the first time.

Earlier last month, US President Donald Trump met Kim at a historic summit in Singapore where the former has been bullish about hopes for peace, boasting that the threat of nuclear war is over.

But the statement signed by Trump and Kim was short on detailed commitments and Pompeo has been tasked with negotiating a plan to achieve the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula.

This would involve Kim making a detailed declaration of the extent of his nuclear arsenal and enrichment program, and agreeing a timetable for it to be dismantled and placed under inspection.

Washington hopes that the process can be underway within a year, but many expert observers and Trump critics warn that Kim's summit promise meant little and the process could take years.

Meanwhile, Pompeo and Trump have vowed to keep in the place the international economic sanctions that they believe forced the North to the negotiating table in the first place.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team