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The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that the "maximum pressure campaign" against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will continue although President Donald Trump said last week he had not liked the term. In a press briefing, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that "sanctions and the pressure campaign remains in place." After meeting Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the DPRK's ruling Workers' Party of Korea, Trump told the media Friday that he had not liked the term "maximum pressure" as ties with the DPRK had been improving. Suggesting the media not "get bogged in the details," Nauert said "our pressure campaign, whatever it is you want to call it, remains firmly in place." "We will not pull back that pressure campaign" until the DPRK "follows through on its pledge to denuclearize," she said, adding "That is something we have been consistent upon in this administration." Stressing that Washington remains committed to completely verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Nuaert said U.S. talks with the DPRK in Panmunjom and Singapore "are ongoing." "If you want to call that a hawkish thing or a dovish thing, fine, so be it but our policy remains the same," she said. Nauert also said that the U.S. government will not pay for the DPRK delegation during Trump's meeting with the country's top leader, Kim Jong Un, in Singapore on June 12. "We're not paying for their expenses," she said, adding that the United States has not asked other countries to "pay for this." When asked about whether South Korea President Moon Jae-in will go to Singapore for a trilateral meeting with Trump and Kim for the signing of a possible peace treaty, Nauert said that to her knowledge, Moon's trip "has not come up" in the U.S. conversations with South Korea and Japan. The Blue House said recently that South Korea had yet to launch preparations for a three-party summit. Moon said recently that he had anticipation for the three-way summit to be held to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war as the Korean War ended with an armistice. Speaking of the U.S. Congress' statements to weigh in the U.S.-DPRK talks, Nauert said the State Department will not "get bogged down by anything the Senate or the House" said. "They're certainly entitled to say that, but we're not going to get ahead of ourselves in that regard," she added. Trump's meeting with Kim was tentatively scheduled for 9:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) on June 12. White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said earlier on Tuesday that the meeting would take place at the Capella Hotel on Singapore's Sentosa Island. |
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