Pompeo bullish on North Korea talks despite weapons launches

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday the Trump administration is eager to “get back to the table” for nuclear weapons negotiations with North Korea — one day after leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a barrage of weapons launches from the rogue state’s coast into the sea.

“We still believe that there's an opportunity to get a negotiated outcome where we get fully verified denuclearization.

Chairman Kim has repeated that,” Pompeo told host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We hope this act that he took over the weekend won't get in the way. We want to get back at the table. We want to continue to have these conversations.”

Following reports by the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff that North Korea had blasted several unidentified short-range projectiles into the Sea of Japan, Kim’s state-run media on Sunday showed him observing the firing of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile. Those live-fire drills took place Saturday.

Pompeo noted Sunday that sanctions on North Korea leveled by the United Nations Security Council are still in place, and suggested that Kim’s meeting last week in the Russian city of Vladivostok with President Vladimir Putin did not yield sufficient international economic relief for Pyongyang.

“These launches took place just after he met with Vladimir Putin. So, clearly Chairman Kim has not yet been able to get precisely what he wanted,” Pompeo said. “But we hope that we can get back to the table and find the path forward. We're further along than we were a year ago, and we hope we can continue to make progress.

”

The weekend weapons launches represent the most recent in a series of diplomatic setbacks between Washington and Kim’s repressive regime.

Kim’s confab with Putin came as the Kremlin has sought recently to undermine American foreign policy in Venezuela by backing embattled President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration and several other Western nations support efforts by opposition leader Juan Guaidó to oust the South American strongman.

President Donald Trump

Twitter

last month that a third summit with Kim “would be good,” after the North’s state-run media reported that Kim said he is open to another sit-down with his American counterpart. But if the U.S. "persists in its present political calculation method," Kim warned that "the prospect of settling the issues will gloomy and very dangerous."

Days later, Kim’s government announced it had test-fired a new type of “tactical guided weapon,” and demanded that Trump remove Pompeo from future nuclear negotiations.

Further complicating the potential for fruitful talks, Trump has denied that his administration paid any money for the return of detainee Otto Warmbier following reports that North Korea issued a $2 million medical bill in exchange for his release.

But Trump on Saturday insisted in a

Twitter

that a “Deal will happen” with North Korea, writing online that Kim “knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me.”

Pompeo defended Trump’s post on Sunday.

“The president understands the challenges. The president deeply understands this,” Pompeo said. “And we are working towards finding a path forward with Chairman Kim to denuclearize this country diplomatically.”

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine