Pence: Trump to meet Kim in 2019, press for plan to end North Korea arms program

Vice President Pence said Thursday that a follow-up meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place after the New Year, but the U.S. won’t require Kim to provide a list of its nuclear weapons sites before the summit.

Pence told NBC News that the two sides will need to develop a “verifiable plan” during the meeting to disclose North Korea’s nuclear sites and weapons and to allow for inspections.

“I think it will be absolutely imperative in this next summit that we come away with a plan for identifying all of the weapons in question, identifying all the development sites, allowing for inspections of the sites and the plan for dismantling nuclear weapons,” Pence said in an interview during a summit in Singapore.

{mosads}Pence said details of the meeting, including when and where it will take place, are still being discussed.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, earlier this week identified more than a dozen nuclear missile bases in North Korea left unaddressed during ongoing talks between the two sides.

The Trump administration has expressed frustration at times over the plodding pace of North Korea’s pledge to denuclearize. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo postponed a meeting with a North Korean envoy last week.

Trump and Kim first met in Singapore in June. The president declared following the meeting that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat, despite experts noting the country had not allowed inspectors to observe the destruction of its nuclear arsenal.