U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed the goal of North Korea's compete denuclearization, amid stalled negotiations with the communist country.
During a Senate hearing Thursday, Republican Senator Cory Gardner asked Pompeo if Washington still pursues the "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
Pompeo responded, "It does."
His answer appears to reiterate Washington's basic stance against Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons, but it came despite the regime's strong aversion to the CVID concept, which it views as a unilateral disarmament process.
Earlier this month, Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader's powerful younger sister, took issue with the inclusion of that denuclearization concept in a statement released after a virtual meeting among the defense ministers of the United States, Australia and Japan.
Dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang has stalled since they held working-level talks in Sweden in October, which fell apart over the scope of the North's denuclearization and corresponding measures by the U.S.
<Photo: Yonhap News>
