The top diplomats of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have reaffirmed close cooperation in a joint effort to achieve complete denuclearization of North Korea, saying that sanctions against the North will continue until the goal is achieved. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday held a meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts Kang Kyung-wha and Taro Kono in Tokyo, during which he shared the results of his two-day nuclear talks in Pyongyang.   

In a joint news conference after the Tokyo meeting, Pompeo said that during his latest visit to Pyongyang, progress was made on the denuclearization agreement reached in the U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, but that "progress alone" does not justify the relaxation of the existing sanctions regime. 

He added that sanctions will remain in place until the North’s "final, fully verified denuclearization" is achieved, and that North Korea had reaffirmed its commitment to its complete denuclearization.

Meanwhile, Pompeo downplayed a critical North Korean statement issued after his trip in which the North's Foreign Ministry accused Washington of making "gangster-like" unreasonable demands regarding denuclearization. 

Pompeo brushed aside the criticism by saying that if those requests were gangster-like, then the world is a gangster, noting that numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have demanded that the North rid itself of nuclear weapons and end its ballistic missile program. 

He added that his two days of talks with senior North Korean officials had included a “detailed and substantive discussion about the next steps towards a fully verified and complete denuclearization.”

[Photo : YONHAP News]