The United States is prepared to offer North Korea security assurances and bountiful private investment if it makes the strategic choice to give up its nuclear weapons, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged Sunday.
The US price for normalization — complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization — is one Pyongyang has never before been willing to pay, seeing nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of the regime’s survival.
But both countries have been on charm offensives ahead of the summit June 12 in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the first ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
On Saturday, North Korea said it will destroy its nuclear test site later this month — a gesture Trump quickly hailed as “very smart and gracious.”
Pompeo, who has met twice with Kim, described him as well-informed and attuned to western media coverage, a leader “who knows his brief” and what he wants to achieve.
