'North Korea-US nuclear talks will resume in a couple of weeks'

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha at the foreign ministerial session of the East Asia Summit in Centara Grand Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand on Aug. 2. Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised hopes for the restart of nuclear disarmament dialogue with North Korea in two weeks.

“We are planning for negotiations in a couple of weeks and we anticipate the two teams getting back together,” Pompeo said Thursday morning (KST).

Earlier thoughts were Washington and Pyongyang would resume their “working-level” discussions on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula last month, after a historic June encounter between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the South's side of the truce village of Panmunjeom.

The reclusive state refused to respond to the U.S.' repeated calls for talks as agreed upon during the June meeting.

Pompeo defended North Korea by saying the regime's missile launches were not a violation of Kim Jong-un's promise to suspend nuclear testing and long-range missile launches. “There are not long-range missiles being fired. Those are both good things,” he said.

Washington is intentionally underestimating the significance of the North's repeated provocations by calling the actions “a protest” in response to this year's joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States.

The allies kicked off Monday their preliminary joint military exercise, the crisis management staff training before conducting the computer-driven major Command Post Exercise next week.

“Now the task is for us to deliver on what the two leaders agreed to back in June of last year in Singapore,” Pompeo said.

A South Korean government official declined to comment over whether South Korea is aware that any secret talks are underway between the U.S. and the North to arrange their possible upcoming working-level dialogue.