By Gardiner Harris and Choe Sang-Hun
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” and called it “deeply regrettable,” hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were “productive.”
Despite the criticism, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, still wanted to build on the “friendly relationship and trust” forged with President Trump during their summit meeting in Singapore on June 12. The ministry said Mr. Kim had written a personal letter to Mr. Trump, reiterating that trust.
The two sides have a history of veering between harsh talk and conciliation. Mr. Trump briefly called off the Singapore summit meeting over what he called North Korea’s “open hostility,” only to declare it back on after receiving what he called a “very nice letter” from Mr. Kim.
On Saturday, Mr. Pompeo and his entourage offered no immediate evidence that they had come away with anything tangible to show that North Korea was willing to surrender its nuclear and missile weapons programs. He did not meet with Mr. Kim but held talks with Kim Yong-chol, a senior official who has been country’s point person in talks with the United States, South Korea and China.
“These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues,” Mr. Pompeo said Saturday before boarding a plane for Tokyo. He called the meetings “productive.”
The North Korean Foreign Ministry’s assessment was decidedly less upbeat.
“The attitude and demands from the U.S. side during the high-level talks were nothing short of deeply regrettable,” the ministry said, accusing American “working-level” officials of trying to destroy the agreement struck in Singapore.
Mr. Pompeo came to Pyongyang to try to get the North Koreans to match their vague commitment to denuclearization — signed by Kim Jun-un in the June meeting with President Trump — with some kind of action. Among the first priorities were a declaration of weapons sites, a timeline of deconstruction efforts and, perhaps, a written statement that the North’s definition of denuclearization matched Mr. Pompeo’s.
Asked if he had gotten any of those, Mr. Pompeo declined to divulge details.
Washington insists that North Korea disclose all the details of its nuclear weapons program, dismantle its facilities and let outside inspectors verify the steps. The idea is to remove all the North’s nuclear weapons and its ability to build more, before offering any significant rewards.
But the North has long rejected such an approach, instead demanding that the United States take reciprocal measures in each “phased” step it takes toward denuclearization.
On Saturday, the North Korean statement reiterated that “phased, simultaneous actions” were “the quickest way of realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
During their meetings with Mr. Pompeo, North Korean officials proposed dismantling a missile engine-test site and opening negotiations for repatriating the remains of American service members killed in the Korean War, the Foreign Ministry said. In return, they proposed that the United States take “simultaneous” actions of expanding bilateral exchanges and announcing an end to the Korean War in July.
But the ministry said that the United States balked at the proposal for declaring an end to the war, which North Korea said was a crucial first step toward building trust.
“The issues the U.S. side insisted on during the talks were the same cancerous ones that the past U.S. administrations had insisted on,” the ministry said.
It said North Korea had so far taken the “irreversible” action of destroying its underground nuclear test site, while the United States had taken only the “reversible” action of suspending joint military exercises with South Korea.
Privately, Mr. Pompeo has said that he doubts the North Korean leader will ever give up his nuclear weapons. And those doubts have been reinforced in recent days by intelligence showing that North Korea, far from dismantling its weapons facilities, has been expanding them and taking steps to conceal the efforts from the United States.
Mr. Trump has said his summit meeting with Mr. Kim was a success, and he has declared the North “no longer a nuclear threat.” Squaring Mr. Trump’s evaluation with what increasingly seems like a more troubling reality has become one of Mr. Pompeo’s greatest challenges as the United States’ chief diplomat.
It was Mr. Pompeo’s third trip to Pyongyang but the first time he had spent the night. Even so, it appeared to have been his least productive.
There had been hopes that Mr. Pompeo would get the North to agree to release the remains of American war dead. But Mr. Pompeo said that another meeting had been set up for July 12 for further talks on repatriating the remains, a dialogue that will be led by the Defense Department.
Mr. Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol began their meetings on Saturday in Pyongyang with the customary flowery greetings. But just before reporters were ushered out of the room, the exchange grew sharper.
“There are things that I have to clarify,” Mr. Kim said.
“There are things that I have to clarify as well,” Mr. Pompeo quickly responded.
At the airport in Pyongyang, when asked if he had brought up the satellite images that appeared to show that the North was actually expanding its capabilities, Mr. Pompeo responded: “We talked about what the North Koreans are continuing to do.”
He said they had discussed “achieving what Chairman Kim and President Trump both agreed to, which is the complete denuclearization of North Korea. No one walked away from that, they’re still equally committed, Chairman Kim is still committed.”
Mr. Pompeo had begun his day by leaving the elaborate guesthouse where he was staying to make a secure phone call to Mr. Trump. Also on the call were John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff. State Department officials have assumed that listening devices are planted throughout the guesthouse.
A small group of reporters traveling with Mr. Pompeo have been allowed into the Pyongyang meetings to record their initial moments, as is routine for such diplomatic encounters. But the North Koreans allowed reporters to stay several minutes longer than usual.
On Saturday morning, those extra moments led to the recording of an unusually lengthy exchange between Mr. Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol.
“This isn’t your first visit to our country, yet this is your first night in our country,” Mr. Kim began.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“I did, I did, thank you for the accommodation,” Mr. Pompeo answered.
A few moments later, Mr. Kim said, “But we did have very serious discussions on very important matters yesterday. So thinking about those discussions, you might have not slept well last night.”
“Director Kim, I slept just fine,” Mr. Pompeo responded, an edge creeping into his voice. “We did have a good set of conversations yesterday. I appreciate that, and I look forward to our continued conversations today as well.”
Mr. Pompeo added, “We consider this very important, too, since it is the first senior-level face-to-face meeting since the summit between our two leaders.” He said that “building a relationship between our two countries is vital for a brighter North Korea and the success that our two presidents demand of us.”
That was a slip, according to Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea analyst at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He noted that Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founding leader, who died in 1994, is considered the North’s “eternal president,” and that Kim Jong-un, his grandson, would not dare to assume the title.
Mr. Lee was also critical of the State Department’s announcement on Saturday that it had created a small working group to keep hammering out the details of a denuclearization agreement. Mr. Lee said that such groups had been a feature of past nuclear agreements with the North and had served only to postpone their eventual failure.
“Forming small working groups is another stalling, ensnaring tactic to keep the momentum and create the illusion of cooperation,” Mr. Lee said.
Many people who have negotiated with North Korea in the past, or who follow the country closely, also express doubt that the North will surrender its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
But Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, denied on Saturday that Mr. Pompeo saw the process as doomed.
“There’s a lot of hard work that’s left to be done,” she said. “We never thought this would be easy, and that’s why consultations continue.”
For months, Mr. Pompeo has said that he would insist on achieving nothing less than the North’s “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” — or C.V.I.D., as it has become known. But in recent days, Mr. Pompeo and Ms. Nauert have stopped using that phrase, leading to speculation that the United States has begun to dial back its demands.
Ms. Nauert said on Saturday that there had been no softening of the American position, although she would not explain the change in language.
Gardiner Harris reported from Pyongyang, North Korea, and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea.
A version of this article appears in print on of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea Calls Demands by U.S. ‘Regrettable’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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