The United States hopes to see a "freeze" of North Korea's nuclear weapons program as a starting point — not an endgame — for Pyongyang eventually relinquishing its arsenal, a State Department spokeswoman said Tuesday ahead of a fresh round of talks expected to kick off later this month.
The remarks come amid reports and speculation that the administration of President Donald Trump would be amenable to the idea of a freeze, which would run counter to the White House's often stated goal of the North's complete denuclearization.
"(A) freeze, you know, that would never be the resolution of a process. That would never be the end of a process," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. "That would (be) something that we would certainly hope to see at the beginning. But I don't think that the administration has ever characterized a freeze as being the end goal. That would be at the beginning of the process."