Disarmament talks between the US and North Korea ended in Pyongyang on Saturday with the North Korean regime accusing Washington of a “gangster-like mindset” and warning of “yet another tragedy” if negotiations collapse.



The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, responded that if the US was a gangster, so was the whole world, as it had the same demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programme.

He insisted sanctions would remain in place until Pyongyang completed disarmament.

Pyongyang, however, made clear it had no intention of carrying out the comprehensive unilateral disarmament Donald Trump has claimed was the outcome of his 12 June summit in Singapore with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.



In rebuffing the US approach to talks, the regime laid out its most detailed negotiating position to date, suggesting confidence-building measures each side could take, including a proposal to freeze production of intercontinental ballistic missiles and a call for a formal declaration ending the Korean war of 65 years ago.

A long detailed statement from the North Korean foreign ministry on Saturday gave an assessment of the past two days of talks between US and North Korean delegations in Pyongyang, describing them as “regrettable”. The statement flatly contradicted the upbeat assessment from Pompeo, who headed the US delegation.

On leaving Pyongyang for Tokyo, Pompeo had said the two delegations had made progress on “almost all the central issues” and that on some issues there was “a great deal of progress”. Speaking later in Tokyo alongside Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers, Pompeo insisted the Pyongyang regime had accepted it would have to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme entirely.

“From weapons systems, to fissile material, to production facilities, it’s a broad definition of denuclearisation and they have not challenged that,” he said.



Asked how he could think the North Koreans had been negotiating in good faith, Pompeo replied “Because they were.”

The North Korean foreign ministry statement, by contrast, adopted a wounded tone, saying hopes of progress raised by the Singapore summit between Kim Jong-un and Trump, had been dashed by the one-sided approach taken by Pompeo’s delegation.

In particular, the statement to took the Americans to task for insisting on complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID).

But expectation and hope of ours were so naive as to be foolish

“The US side came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearisation just calling for CVID, declaration and verification, all of which run counter to the spirit of the Singapore summit meeting and talks,” the statement said.

It also complained that Pompeo’s team never mentioned “a peace regime on the Korean peninsula”, which for Pyongyang involves scaling back the US military commitment to South Korea, and the formal declaration of peace.

“We thought that the US side would come with a constructive proposal which is with the spirit of the [North Korea-] US summit meeting and talks. But expectation and hope of ours were so naive as to be foolish,” it said.

“It seems that the US misunderstood our goodwill and patience. The US is fatally mistaken if it went to the extent of regarding that the DPRK would be compelled to accept, out of its patience, the demands reflecting its gangster-like mindset.”

Pointedly, the foreign ministry said “We still cherish our good faith in President Trump”, suggesting that the “headwinds” to progress were being created by others.

If the talks failed, it warned “this will finally make each side seek for another choice and there is no guarantee that this will not result into yet another tragedy”.

Pompeo met the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, on Sunday, to brief him on the Pyongyang talks. Speaking at the start of the meeting at his Tokyo residence, Abe paid tribute to the “strong leadership” Pompeo had demonstrated in Pyongyang.

“This really shows the unwavering bond of the Japan-US alliance,” the prime minister said. Pompeo later restated the US position that sanctions would remain in place until “final” North Korean denuclearisation had been carried out.

The Pyongyang talks, however, appeared to have exposed a wide gap between the way the Trump administration and Pyongyang interpreted the outcome of the Singapore summit. In a joint statement with Trump, Kim committed his regime to move towards “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.



Trump took it to mean total and unilateral nuclear disarmament. He returned to the US claiming North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat”. Last week in Montana, he told a crowd: “But we signed a wonderful paper saying they’re going to denuclearise their whole thing. It’s going to all happen.”

However, since 1992, the regime has used the phrase, “complete denuclearisation” to mean a drawn out, phased process of mutual demilitarisation of the peninsula.

In Singapore, Trump and Kim also agreed verbally on mutual confidence-building measures, in which Trump would suspend military exercises with South Korea, while Kim would dismantle a missile engine testing site and repatriate the remains of some US soldiers killed in the Korean war.

Trump immediately ordered the suspension of what he called US-South Korea “war games”, dismissing them as too expensive. However, Pyongyang has yet to deliver on its side of the bargain – destroying the test site and sending back the soldiers’ remains.

Saturday’s foreign ministry statement lays out an expanded North Korean version of what mutual confidence-building measures would look like.

It said Pyongyang would dismantle the “high thrust engine” testing site as a concrete measure towards “the suspension of ICBM production as part of denuclearisation steps” while making a start of “working level talks” on repatriation of remains.

In return the US would make “public a declaration on the end of war” on the 65th anniversary of the Korean war armistice, which falls on 27 July.

It remains unclear how Trump will respond to the withering North Korean rhetoric. So far he has ignored suggestions that he achieved little of substance in Singapore.

Colin Kahl, former national security advisor to vice-president Joe Biden, assessed the latest developments in a tweet.

“The good news: If diplomacy continues to stall, Trump will probably not go back on the war path because that would require him to admit he got suckered by Kim,” Kahl said. “The bad news: He got suckered by Kim.”

Soon afterwards, Susan Rice, who was national security advisor to Barack Obama, replied on Twitter.

“No, Colin, once he realises he got suckered, he will go on the war path to try to prove his manhood. He will manufacture some excuse other than his own gullibility,” Rice said. “This will get dicey again.”