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Sung Kim, the United States Ambassador to the Philippines, travels in a vehicle from the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Seoul on July 2 after meeting with North Korean officials. (Yonhap / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)
SEOUL – Sung Kim, the US ambassador to the Philippines, had talks with North Korean officials in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreans this weekend. End, announced Monday the State Department. amidst the skepticism of the country's denuclearization efforts.
The meeting appears to be the first direct contact between US officials and their counterparts in North Korea since President Trump met with leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.
The State Department announced Monday that Secretary Pompeo will return to Pyongyang on July 5 and 7 to "continue consultations" with North Korean officials. Pompeo will also travel to Tokyo, Hanoi, Abu Dhabi and Brussels for the NATO summit next week.
Pompeo, who played a leading role in negotiations with North Korea, said it would take years for the nation's nuclear stock.
Sung Kim, ambassador to South Korea from 2011 to 2014 and nuclear negotiator with the North in previous discussions, has played a key role in the dialogue with Pyongyang in recent months. In late May, the envoy conducted a meeting between US officials and North Korean officials, also in the demilitarized zone, before the Singapore summit.
The State Department stated in a statement that Kim had headed a delegation with North Korea. Their counterparts Sunday in the village of Panmunjom, where they discussed the next steps towards the implementation of the joint declaration signed Trump and Kim Jong Un last month
"Our goal remains the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK , as agreed by President Kim in Singapore, "said the statement, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
. the remains of US troops from North Korea are taking longer than expected. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the US secret service had evidence that North Korea did not intend to abandon all its stock of nuclear weapons, despite the fact that Trump's assertion that there would be "no more nuclear threat". National Security Minister John Bolton said Pompeo would "discuss with the North Koreans in the near future how to dismantle all their WMD." [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs in one year.
According to reports in South Korea, Sung Kim met with North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Panmunjom for an hour and a half on Sunday, citing an unidentified diplomatic source. said that Andrew Kim, head of the CIA's mission center in Korea, handed over a letter from Pompeo to Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's leading representative in the talks
.Eui-keum, a spokesman for the South Korean Blue House, said that Seoul was aware of the meeting, but that it would be inappropriate to comment further.Sung Kim was photographed later leaving the hotel Four Seasons in Seoul on Monday.
Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official who teaches at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, said the presence of a respected diplomat playing field during the negotiations with the horn He added that Pompeo used the "best people he can find in the bureaucracy."
However, said Jackson, Kim's involvement with what he considered as a disappointing summit in Singapore has shown the limits of this approach. "It does not matter how much you are a diplomat," Jackson said. "If there is an irreducible conflict of interests between two parties, there is simply no room for diplomatic maneuvers."
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
Read more:
North Korea strives to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program
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