Pompeo was asked en route to Singapore about his statement in the US Senate last month that North Korea was continuing to make bomb fuel and reports that North Korea, led by Kim Jong-un, was building new missiles.
“Chairman Kim made a commitment to denuclearise,” Pompeo told reporters. “The world demanded that they (North Korea) do so in the UN Security Council resolutions. To the extent they are behaving in a manner inconsistent with that, they are a) in violation of one or both the UN Security Council resolutions and b) we can see we still have a way to go to achieve the ultimate outcome we’re looking for.”
Pompeo thanked ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a meeting in Singapore for their efforts in enforcing sanctions on North Korea.
In a landmark summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12, Kim, who is seeking relief from tough sanctions, committed to work towards denuclearisation, but Pyongyang has offered no details on how it might go about this.
Pompeo told a Senate committee hearing on July 25 that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs in spite of its pledge.
On Monday, a senior US official said US spy satellites had detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that North Korea appeared to be building one or two new liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missiles at the research facility, citing unidentified officials familiar with intelligence reporting.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho is also in Singapore and will attend the same regional meeting as Pompeo today, but the State Department has not said whether the two will meet.
Following his talks with Ri, China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said he hoped North Korea and the United States would continue to move forward to implement their leaders’ agreement.
“China all along has believed that the consensus reached by US and North Korea’s leaders meeting in Singapore is very precious,” Wang told reporters.
“That is, at the same time as realising denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, to establish a peace mechanism.
This direction is without a doubt correct,” he said.
China is North Korea’s most important economic and diplomatic supporter and fought for the North in the 1950-53 Korean War against the US-led United Nations forces that backed South Korea.
Pompeo, who has led the US negotiating effort with North Korea, visited Pyongyang from July 5-7 for inclusive talks aimed at agreeing a denuclearisation roadmap.
Pompeo said at the time he had made progress on key issues, only for North Korea to accuse his delegation hours later of making “gangster-like” demands.
Trump hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat, but questions have been mounting about Pyongyang’s willingness to give up its weapons programmes.
Trump has pointed to North Korea’s freeze on nuclear and missile tests and its agreement to return the remains of American troops killed in the 1950-53 Korea War.
