Secretary of state tells Senate committee Pyongyang’s ‘primary systems’ still threaten US, but ‘verifiable progress’ is being made
North Korea is still producing fuel for nuclear bombs despite pledges to give up its nuclear program, U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.
Questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime was continuing to produce fissile material.
He declined to answer questions about whether the North’s nuclear program was still advancing generally and whether Pyongyang was looking to acquire ballistic missiles that could be launched from submarines.
Pompeo said he preferred to answer such questions in a « different setting, » meaning in a classified briefing. He told the senators that answering those questions in public could hurt « complex negotiations with a difficult adversary.
