Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Trump-Kim summit more likely after October: Report

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he was working to set up the next summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but any meeting will likely be after October.

"We're working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon," Pompeo said in an interview with "CBS This Morning."

"It may happen in October, but more likely sometime after that."

A day before while addressing the United Nations General Assembly Trump praised North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un for his courage in taking some steps to disarm.

He, however, added that much work was needed to be done and sanctions must remain in place on North Korea until it denuclearizes.

Calling his relations with North Korea as improved ties he further praised Kim Jong Un for halting nuclear and missile tests and returning some US remains from the 1950s Korean War.

Trump's remarks on North Korea were dramatically different to those in his speech last year at the UN assembly when he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea and mocked the North Korean leader as "Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission."

Trump held an unprecedented summit with Kim in Singapore in June that yielded a broad pledge by Kim to "work toward" denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Kim’s commitments and actions, however, have fallen far short of Washington’s demands for a complete inventory of North Korea’s weapons programs and irreversible steps to give up a nuclear arsenal that potentially threatens the United States.

"It will take a while; there will be a process to this," Pompeo said. "President Trump's been clear about that and clear-eyed about that since the very beginning."

Asked if Kim had agreed to allow international inspectors into nuclear sites, Pompeo said, "Yes."

He did not, though, comment on whether any US or international inspectors had been allowed into nuclear sites in the reclusive communist country but said verification was important in any nuclear agreement.

"We've talked about this verification from the beginning," he told CBS. "We're not going to buy a pig in a poke. We're going to get this right. We're going to deliver on this commitment (to denuclearize) that Chairman Kim has made to the world."

Pompeo said he would be going to Pyongyang soon but did not give a date.

(With inputs from Reuters)