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Pompeo holds out hope for 2nd North Korean summit

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media in the briefing room at the Department of State, on November 20, 2018 in Washington, DC. Pompeo met with Turkish Foreign Minister Meylut Cavusglu after President Trump released a statement signaling that the United States will stand by Saudi Arabia after the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. AFP-Yonhap

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that he continues to hope for a second meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un early next year.

Pompeo was scheduled to meet a senior North Korean official in New York earlier this month to plan the second summit and discuss details of the North's commitment to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

The meeting was abruptly postponed a day before it was supposed to take place, with the U.S. attributing it to scheduling problems.

People watch a TV screen showing file footage of U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 24, 2018. Yonhap

"We continue to negotiate with them to get them to implement what Chairman Kim, who I've had the chance to meet with on a number of occasions, to get Chairman Kim to complete the commitment that he made to fully and verifiably denuclearize North Korea," Pompeo said on the Pete Mundo Morning Show.

"This would be great for America, great for the region, and wonderful for the North Korean people as well, and I do hope that there'll be a summit between the two leaders early in 2019," he said.

Trump and Kim's first summit in June yielded an agreement to work toward "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S.

The two sides have yet to agree to concrete steps amid North Korean demands for sanctions relief and U.S. insistence on achieving full and verified denuclearization first.

Trump has also said he expects to meet Kim early next year. (Yonhap)