U.S. expects to continue talks with DPRK: Pompeo

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that he hoped for the continuation of the dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, according to a statement issued by the State Department.

“Each side had agreed that there was clearly more conversation to be had. I hope we can continue the dialogue,” Pompeo said in Manila during his interview with ABS-CBN, a media group from the Philippines.

The United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) “didn’t quite get as far in this summit as we would have hoped,” Pompeo noted, adding the two sides still “made some progress” in the two-day summit in Hanoi.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, top leader of the DPRK, ended their second meeting in Vietnam’s capital on Thursday without reaching an agreement.

Trump said at a press conference after the summit that “basically they (DPRK) want the sanctions lifted, in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.”

Countering the U.S. claims, Ri Yong Ho, the DPRK’s foreign minister, told a separate press conference that Pyongyang only proposed the removal of sanctions that directly affect the livelihoods of its people.

If the United States agrees to the proposal, the DPRK “will permanently and completely dismantle all nuclear production facilities in the Yongbyon area, including plutonium and uranium in the presence of U.S. experts and by the joint work of technicians of both countries,” Ri said.