A day after North Korea said that it no longer wanted to deal with him, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he will still lead the negotiations with Pyongyang.
“Nothing has changed. We will continue to work to negotiate, still in charge of the team. President (Donald) Trump’s obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it will be my team,” Pompeo was quoted in a report.
Threatening that the talks will become ‘lousy’ if Pompeo leads them, a North Korea Foreign Ministry official on Thursday told State-run Korean Central News Agency that whenever Pompeo “pokes his nose in, talks between the two countries go wrong without any results even from the point close to success”.
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“Therefore, even in the case of a possible resumption of the dialogue with the US, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but [another] person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us,” he said.
The war of words between North Korea and Pompeo began last week when the later acknowledged that DPRK leader Kim Jong-un is a tyrant.
Pompeo, who has made four visits to North Korea for discussing the South Asian nation’s denuclearisation process so far, every now and then has been accused by Pyongyang of failing the efforts. After the failed Hanoi summit, President Trump had proposed a third round of talks later this year to which Kim had agreed.
Ties between the US and North Korea have hit a roadblock over the ease of sanctions, where Pyongyang sought relief as a recognition of the steps taken towards denuclearisation. No joint statement was released following the talks, as it is reported that the two countries could not resolve their differences on sanction waivers.
Washington has, until now, reinforced that relief in sanctions would only be given after Pyongyang carries out “complete and verifiable” denuclearisation.
(With ANI inputs)