Pompeo Predicts US-North Korea Relations Will Return to ‘Situation Normal’

Vows sanctions against North Korea will continue

In comments Thursday, after President Trump had announced the withdrawal from the June 12 summit with North Korea, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that US policy would return to pre-talks status on North Korea and that he expected that it would return to “situation normal.

Mike Pompeo and Kim Jong-un

Situation normal with respect to US-North Korea relations is anything but. The US has been in a state of war with North Korea since 1950, and the two nations have been constantly at odds, with worsening tensions.

It was only in the last few months there was sudden and major diplomatic progress, leading to direct negotiations for the first time in decades. This led to historic meetings between Pompeo and Kim Jong-un, and was supposed to lead to the Trump-Kim summit.

Pompeo attempted to shift the blame for Trump’s cancellation to North Korea, saying that there were “many times” they didn’t get responses to questions about the summit. Pompeo said he wasn’t surprised that the talks didn’t work out.

Pompeo further added that the US would continue to impose more sanctions against North Korea, just like they have in the past. He said the US still hoped to achieve denuclearization of North Korea, despite being unwilling to attend talks that were explicitly about that.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.