‘Real opportunity’ for progress on North Korea: Pompeo

Washington (AFP) – The US has an “obligation” to pursue a diplomatic solution with North Korea, and there is a “real opportunity” for progress, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

“We have an obligation to engage in diplomatic discourse to try and find a peaceful solution so that Americans aren’t held at risk by Kim Jong Un and his nuclear arsenal,” Pompeo told ABC, saying that there is a “real opportunity” for progress.

America’s top diplomat also said he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held in-depth talks about a denuclearization “mechanism” when they met over Easter weekend.

“We talked a great deal about what it might look like, what this complete, verifiable, irreversible mechanism might look like,” Pompeo said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with Kim in a historic summit, agreeing on Friday to pursue a permanent peace and the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

An armistice brought the fighting on the Korean peninsula to an end in 1953, but 65 years later, a final peace agreement has still not been reached.

The Moon-Kim meeting has raised expectations for US President Donald Trump’s own planned summit with the North Korean leader, the date and location of which have not yet been finalized.