A jubilant-sounding President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that his "deal" with Kim Jong-un has ended the North Korean nuclear threat, as his top diplomat said he hoped to see "major disarmament" of the country by 2020.
Despite the lack of detail, or binding terms in the joint statement agreed with Kim - which has alarmed a majority of observers of the nuclear standoff - Trump struck a resolutely bullish tone.
"There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea," he tweeted in one of a series of early morning pronouncements.
Trump added that everybody "can now feel much safer than the day I took office" and people could "sleep well tonight!"
Critics said the unprecedented encounter between Kim and Trump was more style than substance, producing a document short on specifics about the key issue of Pyongyang's atomic weapons.
But the US president trumpeted the outcome as a "deal" with North Korea and vowed there would be "no more rocket launches, nuclear testing or research!"
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters in Seoul, said the United States hoped for "major disarmament" of North Korea by the end of 2020.
In the summit statement, Kim pledged to "work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" - a stock phrase favored by Pyongyang that stopped short of longstanding US demands for North Korea to give up its atomic arsenal in a "verifiable" and "irreversible" way.
When questioned on the wording, Pompeo said Trump's intention was to allow the US the opportunity to pursue further productive conversations on the issue with Pyongyang.
"Let me assure you that 'complete' encompasses verifiable in the minds of everyone concerned," Pompeo said.
"One can't completely denuclearize without validating, authenticating."
Pompeo said he expects the US would next speak to North Korean officials "fairly quickly after we return to our home countries," adding he was "very confident" that some form of engagement would occur in the next week.
Share
