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North Korea has vowed to shut down its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri next month, the South Korean presidential office said on Sunday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae In agreed to publicly announce when Pyongyang dismantles the test site in May, and Kim said he would invite security experts and journalists to North Korea to ensure the process is transparent.
“The US is constitutionally averse to North Korea, but through dialogue, it will become apparent that we have no intention to target South Korea, the Pacific Ocean or the US with nuclear weapons,” the North Korean leader said during his meeting on Friday with Moon, according to Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young Chan.
“If we are able to build trust with the US through frequent meetings, and promises to end war, and practice a policy of non-aggression, there’s no reason for us to live a hard life with nuclear weapons,” Kim reportedly went on to say.
“We will not repeat the painful history that is the Korean War, and I assure you that military force will not be used under any circumstance,” said Kim, according to Yoon.
Kim also reportedly said North Korea would unify its time zone with South Korea. Seoul is currently 30 minutes ahead of Pyongyang.
“I feel sad to see that there are two clocks hung on the wall in the Peace House, one for Seoul time and the other for Pyongyang time,” Kim said.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump said that he expects a meeting with Kim could take place in “the next three, four weeks,” capping a week that focussed largely on the Korean conflict.
“Whatever happens, happens,” Trump said of the prospective meeting with the North Korean leader.
“Look, I may go in. It may not work out. I leave,” Trump said Saturday at a campaign-style rally in Michigan.
Earlier Saturday, Trump said he had “a long and very good talk” with Moon, one day after Moon and Kim signed an agreement to pursue a nuclear-free peninsula and an official end to the Korean War.
“Things are going very well,” Trump said in a tweet, adding that a time and location for his own meeting with the North Korean leader “is being set.”
The White House confirmed the phone call. The two leaders agreed that “unprecedented pressure” applied by the US, South Korea and the international community had led to what it termed “this significant moment,” according to a White House statement.
Meanwhile, new US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Kim was serious about getting rid of his country’s nuclear weapons.
Kim is “prepared to … lay out a map that would help us achieve” denuclearization, Pompeo told ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
“I had a clear mission statement from President Trump,” Pompeo said of his recent talks with Kim. “When I left, Kim Jong Un understood the mission exactly as I described it today.”
Pompeo says the administration’s objective is “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” with North Korea.
Trump and Moon agreed on this objective, the White House statement added.
Trump said he spoke by phone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “to inform him of the ongoing negotiations,” and the Pentagon said US Secretary of Defence James Mattis spoke with South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-moo.
The White House said Trump and Abe affirmed their commitment to achieving “the permanent and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea” and to continuing their close coordination in advance of talks between the United States and North Korea.
They also reiterated the need for North Korea to abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, according to a White House statement.
The conversations between the US and Asian leaders came as the governments of Iran and Russia reacted to Friday’s historic inter-Korean Summit.
Iran warned the leaders of North and South Korea to keep Trump out of their reconciliation efforts.
“The American government has shown with the Iran nuclear deal that it does not hold to international agreements and is therefore not trustworthy,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said in Tehran.
Trump has complained bitterly about the 2015 deal, which aims to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He has threatened to effectively withdraw from it next month unless its “flaws” are reworked.
Pompeo said Friday on his first full day as secretary of state that the United States is “unlikely” to stick with the deal unless shortcomings of the agreement are addressed.
Russia also weighed in on the talks on the Korean peninsula, saying it is eager and open to participate in discussions.
Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulow told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the traditional six-party format composed of Russia, China, the United States, Japan and both Koreas is optimal and without alternative.
North and South Korea agreed at the summit to pursue trilateral talks with the US, or quadrilateral meetings with the US and China, to declare an end to the Korean War, turn the armistice into a peace treaty and establish “a permanent and solid peace regime.”
The thaw this year follows a tense 2017, in which multiple missile tests by North Korea prompted an international outcry and an exchange of insults between Trump and Kim.
Trump now credits his tough talk and the relationship he has built with Chinese President Xi Jinping for bringing about changes in Kim’s posture.
The US president also says that “maximum pressure,” including sanctions and other modes of economic isolation, will continue until North Korea completes denuclearization.
dpa