MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd November, 2018) US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said he will hold negotiations with his North Korean counterpart the next week.
The South Korean Yonhap news agency reported on Monday, that Pompeo might meet with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's top aide, Kim Yong-chol, the next week in the United States.
"In fact, I'll have another set of conversations next week with my counterpart, the number two person [in North Korea]," Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, when asked about the current status of the Washington-Pyongyang talks.
The US state secretary recalled that during their negotiations, the North Korean leader had expressed his willingness to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
When asked, if it was possible to denuclearize North Korea within a year, Pompeo said it was, noting that it would still be "a real challenge to move to that timeline."
"[US] President [Donald] Trump's been pretty clear, we're not going to be driven into - to artificial timelines that are set by others. We're going to continue to make progress. And so long as we have the capacity to understand what's going on there and to continue the march towards denuclearization, this is an acceptable place for us to be," Pompeo pointed out.
The transcript of the interview was published on the US State Department website late on Friday.
In 2017, the relations between North Korea and the United States have been exacerbated by Trump and Kim exchanging threats with each other. However, the situation stabilized in 2018, as the two leaders held talks in Singapore in June.
During the negotiations, Trump expressed readiness to provide security guarantees to Pyongyang, while Kim expressed the commitment to denuclearize North Korea.
