‘North Korea seeks ‘complete denuclearization’

WASHINGTON: North Korea has expressed its commitment to “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula and has not attached conditions, South Korea’s president said on Thursday, but Washington remains wary and has vowed to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said agreements about denuclearisation, establishing a peace regime and normalisation of relations between the Koreas and the United States should not be difficult to reach through a North-South summit next week, and a later summit planned between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. “I don’t think denuclearisation has different meanings for South and North Korea. The North is expressing a will for a complete denuclearisation,” Moon said during a lunch with chief executives of Korean media companies.

“They have not attached any conditions that the US cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. All they are talking about is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security.

“CIA Director Mike Pompeo met Kim this month to discuss a proposed summit with Trump and reported that the North Korean leader was not demanding the withdrawal of all US forces as a precondition for the meeting, a US official briefed on Pompeo’s trip told Reuters.

However, the official, who did not want to be identified, said that while Kim was open to negotiating ‘denuclearisation,’ the term remained undefined and potentially deceptive, given the need for a timetable and an inspection regime. North Korea has defended its nuclear and missile programmes in the face of worldwide condemnation and sanctions as a necessary deterrent against perceived US hostility. It has said over the years that it could consider giving up its nuclear arsenal if the United States removed its troops from South Korea and withdrew its so-called nuclear umbrella of deterrence from South Korea and Japan.