Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to put a positive face on the struggling denuclearization talks with North Korea Thursday — even as Pyongyang escalated its aggressive rhetoric with a fresh demand that Washington remove a U.S. nuclear umbrella currently protecting South Korea and Japan.

Mr. Pompeo was unfazed by the development during a series of interviews Thursday, emphasizing instead that North Korea hasn’t carried out a nuclear weapon or ballistic missile test since the U.S. and South Korean push for diplomacy with Pyongyang gained steam nearly a year ago.

The Trump administration has known from the start “the challenge of denuclearizing North Korea was not one that would be something that would be easy or without bumps in the road or would occur in a way that was, like instant pudding,” Mr. Pompeo told NPR in an interview slated for broadcast Friday morning.

“The world doesn’t quite work that way,” he said. “We have diplomatically, relentlessly worked to support the president’s mission statement which is to denuclearize North Korea.

“We got the commitment from Chairman Kim,” the secretary of state added, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s joint statement with President Trump in June, in which both agreed to the broadly-worded goal of achieving the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

While critics cite the statement’s lack of clarity on what such a development would truly look like, let alone when and how it might occur, Mr. Pompeo stressed that administration officials have “made some progress.”

“There remains a long ways to go,” he told NPR. “But we are, we are hard at it. Even today.”

His comments came hours after the Kim regime issued its statement that North Korea will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the U.S. first removes what Pyongyang called a “nuclear threat” from the entire region.

“The United States must now recognize the accurate meaning of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and especially, must study geography,” said the statement.

“When we talk about the Korean Peninsula, it includes the territory of our republic and also the entire region of (South Korea) where the United States has placed its invasive force, including nuclear weapons,” it said. “When we talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it means the removal of all sources of nuclear threat, not only from the South and North but also from areas neighboring the Korean Peninsula.”

An Associated Press report characterized the statement as suggesting North Korea will eventually demand the U.S. withdraw or significantly reduce the nearly 30,000 American troops stationed in South Korea. Analysts and former U.S. intelligence officials say such a demand would fit with with what the Kim regime has long sought from Washington.

“Pyongyang provided its clearest public articulation of what Korea watchers have known for decades,” said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and now a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation.

“While continuing to avoid blaming Trump directly, Pyongyang’s diatribe is the latest in a series of incrementally stronger statements,” Mr. Klingner said in comments circulated Thursday by the think tank. “The North Korean statement is not just a shot across the bow, it is bracketing fire.”

Others were similarly unsurprised.

“Keep in mind, to the north, the South is ‘nuclearized’ because of the presence of U.S. troops who have access to nuclear weapons,” said David Maxwell, a retired Army Special Forces colonel and North Korea analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Once U.S. troops are removed, there will then be a sufficient security guarantee for the north and this will be the necessary trust the north needs,” Mr. Maxwell wrote in comments circulated to reporters.

“Then it will begin to negotiate dismantlement of its nuclear program,” he wrote, adding that the catch is that North Korea then, “will cheat.”

“This is what we signed up to when we agreed to changing the relationship and denuclearizing the entire Korean peninsula,” Mr. Maxwell wrote. “The north did not agree to unilateral dismantlement of its nuclear program.”

“The only surprise about [North Korea‘s] announcement should be why now?” he added, suggesting Pyongyang may be trying to widen divisions between the U.S. and South Korea over the long-term status of the American forces positioned in the South.

It’s a sobering assessment at a moment when Washington and Seoul are in disagreement over how much the government of South Korean President Moon Jae-in is willing to pay toward supporting the ongoing American troop presence.

Mr. Trump has frustrated the Moon government by demanding Seoul bear more of the cost. Reuters reported the latest talks on the matter occurred last week, but failed to result in an accord to replace a current deal that requires South Korea to pay roughly $850 million this year.

The Trump administration is reportedly seeking an increase to as much as $1.2 billion from Seoul. U.S. officials have told The Washington Times they’re confident an agreement will be reached soon.

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