U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has discussed the Korean Peninsula denuclearization over phone with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, said the U.S. State Department on Monday.
The two talked by phone twice in the past two days on the eve of a widely expected summit between the leaders of Pyongyang and Seoul.
Pompeo spoke by phone with Kang on Sunday and again on Monday, discussing South Korean President Moon Jae-in's meeting with top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un, said Heather Nauert, the spokesperson of the U.S. State Department, in a statement.
The two sides also pledged to maintain close coordination on continuing denuclearization efforts on the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation, the statement added.
The Moon-Kim summit, the third one between the two leaders, will be held in Pyongyang from Tuesday to Thursday, during which they were anticipated to hold a joint press conference to announce an agreement if their talks go well.
It would be the first time that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is on the dialogue agenda for the inter-Korean summit meeting, according to the Blue House.
The current DPRK-U.S. talks have been stuck in an impasse due to their differences in the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration.
