“The United States remains committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea,” a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday in response to a question on whether the administration’s goal remained unchanged.
Another U.S. official said separately that “there has been no change in U.S. policy.”
The statements mark the clearest response from the Trump administration on the issue since the president raised questions over Washington’s longstanding denuclearization policy with a series of conciliatory gestures toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump recently ordered a reduction in the annual South Korea-U.S. Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise and has expressed interest in meeting Kim again later this year.
Questions over Washington’s position intensified after Trump said on Aug. 19 that North Korea possesses about 57 nuclear weapons, an unusually specific public reference to the size of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
Asked later that day whether denuclearization remained his objective in seeking to reengage Kim, Trump declined to answer directly.
“Well, I don't want to talk about that,” Trump said, before emphasizing his personal relationship with the North Korean leader and arguing that South Korea and Japan were safer with him as president.
His response fueled speculation that Washington could be considering a shift away from demanding complete denuclearization toward negotiations focused on managing or limiting North Korea’s existing nuclear arsenal.
South Korea has also sought to dispel concerns over a potential policy shift.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that South Korea and the United States continue to share the goal of denuclearization, despite the term being omitted from separate readouts of a recent phone call between Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The two countries have consistently maintained the goals of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and denuclearization,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon said.
AJP Takeaways
· The U.S. says it remains committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea.
· The clarification follows Trump’s recent refusal to say whether denuclearization remains his goal.
· South Korea and the U.S. continue to share denuclearization as a policy objective.
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