WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday he will meet this week in New York with North Korea’s number two to discuss denuclearisation and a possible second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I expect we’ll make some real progress, including an effort to make sure that the summit between our two leaders can take place where we can make substantial steps toward denuclearisation,” Pompeo said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Yong Chol later this week comes with the two sides at loggerheads nearly five months after a historic summit in June in which Trump and Kim pledged to work toward the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea’s foreign ministry warned earlier in the week that Pyongyang will “seriously” consider reviving its nuclear weapons programme unless US sanctions are lifted.

Pompeo dismissed the statement, telling “Fox News Sunday,” “I’m not worried about that.” “We are very focused. We know with whom we are negotiating, we know what their positions (are) and President Trump has made his position very clear,” Pompeo said.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2018