Pompeo promises N. Korea future ‘brimming with prosperity’ if it denuclearizes

The Trump administration publicly announced that it will provide economic support to North Korea if it keeps its promise and give up its nuclear weapons. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged Friday (local time) after a meeting with South Korea’s visiting Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, “If North Korea takes bold action to quickly denuclearize, the United States is prepared to work with North Korea to achieve prosperity on the par with our South Korean friends.”

Pompeo described his conversations with Kim as “warm.” “We talked about the fact that America has often in history had adversaries who we are now close partners with and our hope that we could achieve the same with respect to North Korea,” he said. Speculators say that Pompeo and Kim more or less would have made a big deal in which Western countries including the United States invest their capital in North Korea’s development and foot the bill for denuclearization.

The U.S. secretary of state said a permanent, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization is a common goal between the United States and South Korea at the conference. Kang used a phrase “a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” as well, and said a strong verification system is needed for complete denuclearization and Washington and Seoul will achieve results through ways that have not existed in any agreements before.


Jeong-Hun Park sunshade@donga.com