Pompeo reaffirms US goal of North Korea's complete denuclearization

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the State Department's 2021 budget on Capitol Hill Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Washington. AP

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday reaffirmed America's goal of North Korea's compete denuclearization, amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the communist country.

The reaffirmation came during a Senate hearing where Republican Sen. Cory Gardner asked Pompeo if Washington still pursues the "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of the Korean Peninsula."

"It does," Pompeo responded.

The top U.S. diplomat's answer appears to reiterate Washington's basic stance against Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons, but it came despite the recalcitrant regime's strong aversion to the CVID concept.

In consideration of Pyongyang's opposition to the term that it views as a unilateral disarmament process, Washington has used the "final, fully verified denuclearization" or "complete denuclearization."

In a statement earlier this month, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, took issue with the inclusion of the CVID concept in a statement released after a virtual trilateral meeting among the defense ministers of the United States, Australia and Japan.

The nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have not been held since they held the working-level talks in Sweden in October. They remain apart over the scope of the North's denuclearization and Washington's compensation for it. (Yonhap)