South Korea’s Foreign Ministry has downplayed the choice of a different term used by Washington’s top diplomat when he described how the Trump administration wants Pyongyang’s denuclearization to happen. 

At his inauguration ceremony on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is committed to the “permanent, verifiable, irreversible dismantling”(PVID) of the North’s weapons of mass destruction program, instead of the conventional expression used by the U.S., “complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling” (CVID). 

Asked about the matter on Thursday, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said there appears to be no fundamental difference in the meaning, despite the slightly different expression. 

He said Seoul is not certain yet whether the U.S. has officially replaced the term CVID with PVID, but emphasized South Korea and the U.S. share the firm and clear goal of the complete resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. 

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