The United States has no timelines for the denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the State Department reiterated on Wednesday.
"We've been very clear about not projecting any timelines," State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a press briefing. "We have said there's a lot of work left to be done. The conversations continue."
The remark echoed that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said on Tuesday that there is no "time limit" or "speed limit" concerning the U.S. dialogue with the DPRK.
Nauert added that, according to the agreement reached during the U.S.-DPRK leaders' Singapore summit in mid-June, official representatives of Washington and Pyongyang met on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the repatriation of U.S. soldiers' remains.
Also on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States will receive the first set of the remains of some U.S. soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War in the next couple of weeks and "that's the commitment."
High-level talks were held on Sunday between representatives of the United States and the DPRK at the border village of Panmunjom over the repatriation, the first General Officer-level talks between Washington and Pyongyang since 2009.
The two sides agreed to restart field operations in the DPRK to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who never returned home from the Korean War, Pompeo announced on Sunday. The search was suspended in 2005 among rising nuclear tensions.
The U.S. foreign policy chief added that the U.S. sanctions on the DPRK will remain.
"We made progresses on some issues... But all of this will be taking place against the backdrop of continued enforcement of existing sanctions," he said.
