WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence told American ambassadors on Wednesday that North Korea has failed to take any substantive steps to give up its nuclear weapons, even as President Trump is moving toward a second meeting with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

“While the president has started a promising dialogue with Chairman Kim,” Mr. Pence told the gathering at the State Department, “we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.”

With the unequivocal statement, Mr. Pence seemed to directly contradict the president’s claim on Twitter, after his first summit meeting in June, that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” At the time, many of Mr. Trump’s top aides cringed at the declaration, fearing it would take the economic pressure off the North to disarm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/world/asia/pence-north-korea-nuclear.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes