US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday called North Korea’s actions to continue building missiles inconsistent with its promise of dismantling its nuclear weapons.
“Chairman Kim (Jong-un) made a commitment to denuclearize. The world demanded that (he) do so in the UN Security Council resolutions,” Pompeo told journalists accompanying him during his flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.
“In so far as they behave inconsistently with it, they violate one of the resolutions of the UN Security Council,” he was quoted as saying by Efe news.
Pompeo’s statements came after US intelligence services this week said that North Korea could be building new missiles in the same plant where it produced an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching cities located on the US East Coast.
US President Donald Trump and Kim on June 12 held a historic meeting in Singapore where they agreed on the importance of moving step by step and taking simultaneous actions to achieve peace and denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.
The Singapore summit came after Kim held one with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on April 27 — the first inter-Korean summit in 11 years — where both leaders agreed to work towards achieving peace and denuclearization of the peninsula.
Within the framework of the ministerial summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Singapore, Pompeo planned to urge other attendees to remain committed towards continuing with sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council on Pyongyang.
North Korea is one of the countries invited to the Asean Foreign Ministers meetings in Singapore, which will close on Saturday after the meetings of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Forum (EAF).
Asean consists of Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The EAF includes Australia, China, South Korea, the US, India, Japan, New Zealand and Russia, along with the 10 Asean nations.
The ARF, which addresses security issues, consists of, in addition to the above countries, Bangladesh, Canada, North Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, East Timor and the European Union.