Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. AP-Yonhap (Korea Times file)

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he is "counting on" a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un despite an apparent stalemate in talks between the sides.

Pompeo told National Public Radio on Thursday that there had been "some progress" in efforts to rid the North of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

He said that while there was still a long way to go, the he had never expected the issue to be easy or resolved "like instant pudding."

"It's been a great process," he said. "They're not firing rockets. They're not conducting nuclear tests. We have a ways to go, and we will continue to work to achieve the president's agenda."

On a possible second summit, he said, "I'm counting on it."

Trump said early this month that he expected to meet Kim in January or February.

Pompeo has repeatedly voiced hope that a second summit will materialize even as the North Koreans have appeared reluctant.

NK condemns S. Korea over passive role in denuke talks 2018-12-21 17:17  |  Politics 'US eager to move to next stage of NK talks' 2018-12-21 16:18  |  Politics Seoul seeks wider sanctions exemptions for North Korea 2018-12-21 16:58  |  Politics Last month a senior North Korean official was due to meet Pompeo in New York, but the meeting was called off at a day's notice.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang has increasingly demanded reciprocal measures from Washington before the North dismantles a nuclear testing site and returns American soldiers' remains from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore in June and committed to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S.

This week North Korea argued that the joint statement called for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, not just the North, and hence the removal of "all elements of nuclear threats" from South Korea as well.

In terms of the threat, it alluded to U.S. troops in South Korea and U.S. nuclear assets deployed in the region.

There are no nuclear weapons in South Korea. Occasionally, the U.S. flies nuclear-capable bombers, some based in Guam, near Korea as a show of force.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Seoul this week to meet South Korean officials and discuss their next steps on Pyongyang.

In what was seen as an olive branch, the envoy said the U.S. would review a travel ban on the North to ensure Americans could deliver humanitarian assistance to the impoverished nation.

Pompeo was worried that it might be interpreted as a concession to the North.

"You're suggesting to your listeners that somehow we're relaxing the economic sanctions campaign," he said. "Nothing could be further from the truth.

"The truth of the matter is that we are very consistent with what we've done before, making sure that where there is real need, real humanitarian need there, that we don't deny that to the people of North Korea.

"And sometimes it takes getting an American to be able to travel in there to achieve that, and where that's the case we want to facilitate that." (Yonhap)