The United States appears to have shelved an "all-or-nothing" approach to North Korean denuclearization as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads back to North Korea, hoping to agree on a road map for its nuclear disarmament.

Pompeo and senior aides flew out of Washington early Thursday and were due on Friday in the North Korean capital, where Pompeo will spend a day and a half on his third trip to the country this year, and his first since the unprecedented summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12.

It will be Pompeo's first overnight stop in the country, with which the United States has remained technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.