Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Pyongyang next week for the next step in denuclearization talks with North Korea, the State Department confirmed on Thursday. State Department officials said Pompeo is not expected to meet dictator Kim Jong-un during his visit, the second such occasion where he will not do so.
Pompeo announced his visit during a press conference to confirm the appointment of Ford Vice President Stephen Biegun as U.S. special representative for North Korea. Biegun will be in Pompeo’s delegation next week when they visit the North Korea capital, according to the South Korean newswire service Yonhap.
“Steve will direct U.S. policy towards North Korea and lead our efforts to achieve President Trump’s goal of the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea, as agreed to by Chairman Kim Jong-un,” Pompeo explained to reporters. “He and I will be traveling to North Korea next week to make further diplomatic progress towards our objective.”
What, specifically, Pompeo and Biegun will be doing in North Korea remains something of a mystery, as the State Department refused to divulge any details on the conversations they will be having in Pyongyang or what goals the diplomats are hoping to achieve by visiting. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert did confirm to reporters on Thursday, however, that a meeting with Kim Jong-un was not on the official schedule.
“We have no plans for a meeting of that sort, but I’ll let you know any additional details as we get them,” Nauert told reporters during her regular press briefing Thursday. “We have no expectations of meeting with Chairman Kim.”
Nauert explained that the greater goal of the visit will be to continue the “regularizing” of meetings between American and North Korean officials in both countries.
“The conversations continue. We have made significant movements over the past six months,” she noted. “In fact, we’ve had more conversations and consultations with the North Koreans in six months than we have in virtually the past 10 years. So we think we’re on fairly strong footing here.”
“So I think this is just sort of the more – more of a normalization of our types of conversations,” Nauert continued. “We have long said that none of this in terms of working toward denuclearization would be particularly fast. We go into this eyes wide open. But this is all going to take some time, and I think we have been clear about that.”
Nauert added that American officials share the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that North Korea has done nothing to shut down its nuclear weapons program, despite vowing in meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and American President Donald Trump to work towards the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Neither side fully defined what that phrase meant in terms of actionable work items, leaving much room for North Korea to interpret in its best interests.
The IAEA published a report on Monday asserting that no evidence exists that North Korean officials are working to abandon their illegal nuclear program. On the contrary, while North Korean officials made a show of shutting down their Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, considered by many experts to have lost its usefulness after the latest nuclear bomb test in September 2017, other sites appear to be enriching uranium and plutonium that may be used for weapons. The limited information available is largely the product of studying satellite images of relevant sites.
Nauert also stated she would not be bringing with her a copy of Elton John’s Rocketman album, which Pompeo was rumored to have brought with him to his last visit to Pyongyang. President Trump took to calling Kim “little rocket man” last year on Twitter and reportedly asked Kim during their meeting in Singapore if he was aware of Elton John’s work. Kim reportedly said no. Pompeo allegedly did not have the opportunity to hand over the CD during his July visit.
North Korean officials appear to be in discussions with some of their closest allies to prepare for Pompeo’s visit. Last week, Pyongyang sent Kim’s second-in-command to Havana, Cuba, where both sides reportedly discussed supporting each other’s repressive socialist states. Conversations with North Korea’s most powerful patron state, China, also continue. Reports this week suggest that communist leader Xi Jinping may visit Pyongyang for the first time in September.
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