A senior North Korean official reaffirmed Saturday that North Korea proposed giving up its entire main Yongbyon nuclear complex during this week’s summit talks between leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui made the remarks in response to questions related to comments by US
Secretary of Mike Pompeo who said that Pyongyang did not provide clarity regarding what it is prepared to offer on dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
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(Yonhap) |
“We made our stance all clear ... said we will give up the whole Yongbyon,” Choe told reporters at the Melia hotel in Hanoi, where she and the North Korean delegation have been staying since Tuesday.
Kim and Trump met for two days here from Wednesday to discuss dismantling of the North’s nuclear weapons program but failed to reach an agreement.
Trump said the talks ended without a deal because Pyongyang demanded the US lift sanctions “in their entirety” while offering to denuclearize “less important” areas than the US demanded.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho later rebutted the claim, saying that they asked only for partial sanctions relief in exchange for permanently dismantling all fissile material facilities at the country’s Yongbyon complex in the presence of American experts.
During a press conference in Manila on Friday, Pompeo said that the North Koreans were “pretty expansive with respect to what they are prepared to do at Yongbyon but there was still not complete clarity with respect to full scope of what it is they were prepared to offer.” (Yonhap)
