US hopes for North Korean ‘major disarmament’ by 2020 “Still a lot of work left to do”

The US wants to see a “major disarmament” of North Korea within two and a half years – a timeframe taking it up to the end of Donald Trump’s first term in office in 2020. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo admitted there was still “a lot of work left to do” following Tuesday’s historic meeting between the president and Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
The leaders pledged in a joint statement to work towards the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” but it stopped short of US demands for the North to give up its arsenal in a “verifiable” and “irreversible” way.
The secretary of state said he was confident Pyongyang understands there will be an in-depth verification of its disarmament process. Pompeo also defended President Trump’s stance that joint military drills between the US and South Korea will end, insisting they could resume should negotiations with the North deteriorate. Earlier Trump, on his return to the US, told the world it can “sleep well tonight” and said people can feel much safer now he has signed the document to promote peace. He wrote on Twitter: “Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future! Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to war with North Korea.”