It has been well over two years since Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump met in Singapore in June 2018, which is when North Korea's supreme leader agreed to give up the country's nuclear weapons. But Kim Jong Un is yet to make good on his promise. This has US worried, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concerns on the lack of any development on the deal.
"Unfortunately, we have not achieved that yet. Chairman Kim has not yet made the decision that he is actually prepared to execute that, and so the challenges continue," Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Trump and Kim had met again for the second time in the bilateral summit in Hanoi in February 2019. But that meeting did not close on any deal and there haven't been any follow-up talks since.
"I am hopeful that one day, Chairman Kim will come to recognize what President Trump told him repeatedly, is that the North Korean people would be far better off, that they could have a brighter future if they would acknowledge that this nuclear program that they possess is actually the thing that presents risk to the people of North Korea," Pompeo said, according to Yonhap.
Pompeo further pointed out that denuclearization deters a threat from the US, which poses no threat to the people of North Korea. The country has self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing since November 2017.
Not all hope is lost
But it's worth noting that North Korea hasn't made any major provocation ahead of the major administration change in the US as President-elect Joe Biden takes office, a top US general in South Korea said.
"We're not seeing any indicators that suggest that there would be a major provocation -- but that's today. That could change next week," General Robert Abrams, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, told an online forum Tuesday.
This is a significant positive sign as North Korea has historically scheduled major tests like ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons around US presidential elections. This could be a sign that North Korea could be open to future negotiations with the US.
