SEOUL, June 14 (Reuters) - Tough sanctions will remain on North Korea until its complete denuclearization, the U.S. secretary of state said on Thursday, apparently contradicting the Norths view that the process agreed at this weeks summit would be phased and reciprocal.
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a joint statement after their Singapore meeting that reaffirmed the Norths commitment to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, while Trump committed to provide security guarantees.
Trump later told a news conference he would end joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
President Trump has been incredibly clear about the sequencing of denuclearisation and relief from the sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters after meeting South Koreas president and Japans foreign minister in Seoul.
We are going to get complete denuclearisation; only then will there be relief from the sanctions, he said.
North Korean state media reported on Wednesday Kim and Trump had recognized the principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action to achieve peace and denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.
The summit statement provided no details on when North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons program or how the dismantling might be verified.
Skeptics of how much the meeting achieved pointed to the North Korean leaderships long-held view that nuclear weapons are a bulwark against what it fears are the U.S. plans to overthrow it and unite the Korean peninsula.
However, South Korean President Moon Jae-In said the world, through the summit, had escaped the threat of war, echoing Trumps upbeat assessment of his meeting with Kim.
Whats most important was that the people of the world, including those in the United States, Japan and Koreans, have all been able to escape the threat of war, nuclear weapons and missiles, Moon told Pompeo.
Pompeo insisted North Korea was committed to giving up its nuclear arsenal but said it would be a process, not an easy one.
Kim understood getting rid of his nuclear arsenal needed to be done quickly and there would only be relief from stringent U.N. sanctions on North Korea after its complete denuclearization, Pompeo said.
Moon later said South Korea would be flexible when it comes to military pressure on North Korea if it is sincere about denuclearization.
Also on Thursday, North and South Korea held their first military talks in more than a decade. The talks followed on from an inter-Korean summit in April at which Moon and Kim agreed to defuse tension and cease hostile acts.
EVERYBODY MUCH SAFER
The United States has long insisted on complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation by North Korea.
But the summit statement reference to North Korea committing to work towards the complete denuclearization of the peninsula has used been by North Korea in the past to include a U.S. nuclear umbrella in the region, and echoes promises it has failed to keep.
Trump returned to the United States on Wednesday and took to Twitter to hail the meeting, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, as a major win for American security.
Everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office, Trump tweeted. There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.
Democratic critics in the United States said the agreement was short on detail and the Republican president had made too many concessions to Kim, whose country is under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and weapons programs and is widely condemned for human rights abuses.
Pompeo said Trumps comments about the reduced threat from North Korea were made with eyes wide open.
It could be the case that our effort wont ... work but we are determined to set the conditions so that we can right this failure of decades and reset the conditions for North Koreas participation in the community of nations, Pompeo said after a trilateral meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.
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