Pompeo says North Korea is ready to allow outside inspections of a key nuclear site


North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is prepared to take a concrete step of transparency along the path toward denuclearization, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reported Monday following his Sunday conference with Kim in Pyongyang.
"As soon as we get it logistically worked out," Pompeo said, Kim will permit an outside inspection of the Punggye-ri testing site, a key nuclear weapons development facility which North Korea says has been dismantled. "Chairman Kim said he's ready to allow them to come in. There's a lot of logistics that will be required to execute that."
Pompeo said he is also hopeful inspectors will get access to a "missile engine test site" in the town of Tongchang-ri, which Pyongyang says is being dismantled as well.
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This pledge is one of two key results reported from Pompeo's weekend visit. South Korea announced Monday that an agreement was reached to soon hold a second summit between Kim and President Trump.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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