Pompeo met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang on Sunday to rekindle stalled denuclearisation talks following a landmark summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore.
Seoul, Oct 8 (AFP) International inspectors will be allowed into North Korea’s dismantled nuclear testing site, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday, after a meeting with Kim Jong Un in which he said: “significant progress” was made towards denuclearisation.
Pompeo met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang on Sunday to rekindle stalled denuclearisation talks following a landmark summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore.
“Chairman Kim said he’s ready to allow them to come in” to see the dismantled Punggye-Ri nuclear test site, Pompeo said.
North Korea took apart the Punggye-Ri facility in the country’s northeast in May but has yet to allow international observers into the site to verify its claims.
The facility, buried inside a mountain near the border with China, was the staging ground for all six of the North’s nuclear tests.
.@SecPompeo had a good meeting with Chairman Kim today in Pyongyang. Progress made on Singapore Summit Agreements! I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim again, in the near future. pic.twitter.com/bUa2pkq80s
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2018
The inspectors will be allowed in as soon as the two sides agree on “logistics”, Pompeo told reporters in Seoul before leaving for Beijing on a whirlwind diplomatic trip.
Denuclearisation of North Korea is “a long process”, Pompeo said, adding: “We made significant progress.” The visit was Pompeo’s fourth to North Korea.
Trump met Kim in Singapore in June for the first-ever summit between the two countries, resulting in what critics say was only a vague commitment by the North Korean leader towards denuclearisation.
The two sides have since sparred over the exact terms of the vaguely-worded deal, with the US pushing for a “final, fully verified denuclearisation” of North Korea while Pyongyang has slammed Washington for its “gangster-like” demands for its unilateral disarmament.
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