U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday outlined the United States’ plans to help the development of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) if the country agrees to complete denuclearization.
Pompeo said on Friday that the United States and South Korea are ready to help the DPRK achieve prosperity if it takes “bold” action in denuclearization.
In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Pompeo elaborated on the plan, which deals with economic and security issues.
“What Chairman Kim (Jong Un) will get from America is our finest — our entrepreneurs, our risk-takers, our capital providers,” he said.
The DPRK “is desperately in need of energy support, electricity for their people. They are — they’re in great need of agricultural equipment and technology, the finest from the Midwest that I come from. We can deliver that.”
Excluding the possibility of U.S. economic aid to Pyongyang, the top diplomat said “American know-how, knowledge, entrepreneurs, and risk-takers” will work alongside the DPRK people “to create a robust economy for their people.”
He admitted that the aforementioned measures that allow U.S. companies to invest directly in the DPRK are sanctions relief. “If we get denuclearization, of course, there will be sanctions relief.”
Also on Sunday, Pompeo told Fox News in a separate interview, “Now, the task is for President (Donald) Trump and he (Kim) to meet to validate the process by which this would go forward, to set up those markers so that we can negotiate this outcome.”
On Fox, Pompeo also said the topic of “security assurances” to Pyongyang would surely be put on the table.
He said that the objectives include that the U.S. president would convince the DPRK leadership to the point “where America was no longer held at risk” by the DPRK.
The specifics of the Korean Peninsula’s denuclearization process have been a major cause for U.S.-DPRK conflict.
John Bolton, the U.S. national security advisor, demanded earlier that the DPRK ship out all its nuke programs and weapons to the United States to dismantle before the U.S. side grants any concessions. However, Pyongyang insisted on “phased and synchronous measures” in its denuclearization, requiring reciprocal actions by the United States, such as sanctions relief, in exchange.
Pompeo said that there are still “a great deal of details to be worked on” in this regard.
When asked by Fox about his meetings with Kim, Pompeo said their conversations were “professional.”
Pompeo said Kim knows what he is trying to achieve for his people. “He is able to deal with complexity when the conversation requires it,” he said.
Pompeo said the U.S. and DPRK teams would work together to “put our two leaders in a position where it’s just possible we might pull off a historic undertaking.”
During the inter-Korea summit on April 27 in Panmunjom, Kim promised to dismantle the Punggye-ri underground nuclear test site in the northeastern DPRK in a transparent manner and show the dismantlement to the world.
On Saturday, the DPRK announced it would hold a ceremony for the dismantling of its nuclear test site on May 23-25, taking a step forward towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Trump is scheduled to meet the DPRK’s top leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.
