Kono, Pompeo want North Korea’s concrete actions

April 30, 2018

Amman- Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and his US counterpart, Mike Pompeo, agreed on Monday that North Korea needs to take concrete actions toward its complete, verifiable and irreversible nuclear dismantlement.

The ministers, meeting in Amman, confirmed that Japan, the United States and South Korea will continue to work closely to maintain maximum pressure on North Korea.

Pompeo told Kono that it is significant that the pressure policy led to moves by North Korea toward dialogue.

They also agreed that Tokyo and Washington will cooperate in resolving the issue of Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese citizens.

The ministers discussed the abductions after US President Donald Trump pledged to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier in April that he will raise the issue at a planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in early June or earlier.

Pompeo made a secret trip to North Korea over the Easter weekend, when he was CIA director, for talks with Kim to lay the groundwork for the US-North Korean summit.

Kono told reporters after the meeting with Pompeo that the talks made him aware that Washington is positively working on the US-North Korean summit though this is a difficult issue.

Now that Kono held talks with Pompeo, the Japanese minister will cancel his plans to visit the United States in early May. Jiji Press