© Ahn Young-joon/AP
Final preparations are under way in Singapore for Tuesday’s summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Final preparations are under way in Singapore for Tuesday’s summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Mike Pompeo says assurances Trump will offer Kim will go further than 2005 agreement
Washington is prepared to offer North Korea unprecedented security guarantees, the US secretary of state has said in Singapore on the eve of the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Mike Pompeo did not specify what security assurances Trump would offer Kim but made clear they would go even further than a 2005 agreement in which the US pledged not to attack North Korea with nuclear or conventional weapons.
"It is the case we are prepared to give security assurances necessary for the North Koreans to engage in ... denuclearisation," Pompeo told reporters. "We are prepared to take actions that will provide them sufficient certainty that they can be comfortable that denuclearisation isn't something that ends badly for them."
He added: "We are prepared to make ... security assurances that are different, [more] unique than, what America has been willing to provide previously. We think this is both necessary and appropriate."
Comment: Lets not get too optimistic just yet. When Pompeo says that the US remains "committed to the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula", he is hinting at impossible conditions which North Korea as a sovereign nation will never agree to. This issue is clearly explained here:
Rambouillet ruse? Why Trump could be setting up his North Korea talks to fail