Mike Pompeo says he hopes US can resume talks with North Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday he hoped Pyongyang and Washington will be able to resume talks on dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear program but the decision was ultimately up to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I hope we quickly are able to get back to that place, but ultimately Chairman Kim will have that decision to make for himself,” Pompeo told a Senate committee in his first comments shortly after President Donald Trump canceled a historic summit with Kim that had been scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

Trump announced his abrupt withdrawal from the summit in a letter to Kim on Thursday and called it a “missed opportunity.”

Pompeo read the letter aloud at the start of testimony to the committee, saying it was a disappointing development although “frankly not a surprise.” Pompeo said Trump had made the decision himself to withdraw after meetings on Wednesday in which he concluded that the summit would not be successful.

Pompeo said discussions included how the administration would proceed toward North Korea. “There is a lot of discussion within the administration about how to proceed on that,” Pompeo said, “We always knew there could be a summit that didn’t work that ultimately was unsuccessful.”

The United States will maintain sanctions against Pyongyang, Pompeo said, adding: “In some ways, it’s ‘situation normal.’ The pressure campaign continues.” He said Pyongyang had not been responsive in recent days as the Trump administration sought to send logistics teams to Singapore ahead of the summit.

“Over the past many days we have endeavored to do what Chairman Kim and I had agreed to put preparation teams together to begin to work for the summit and we had received no response to our inquiries to them,” Pompeo said.

“We’ve not been able to conduct the preparations between our two teams that would be necessary to have a successful summit,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo said he did not think the summit’s cancellation was a sign that Kim is a “weak leader” and added: “In fact he has demonstrated enormous capacity to lead his country and his team.”

Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama