WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein — Asked on Friday if the White House planned to make any specific new announcements on its nonproliferation agenda in the coming six months, Countryman affirmed, "Yes."
"Will there be dramatic announcements? I am not going to predict today. There will be progress."
Earlier in the day, Countryman addressed a Korean-American organization in Washington, DC to discuss the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the Obama administration’s efforts to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.
White House national security advisor Ben Rhodes stated earlier in June that the White House would continue work on nuclear nonproliferation, and described North Korea as the most serious proliferation challenge the United States face in the world.
It is unclear whether the future White House announcement could address the North Korean nuclear threat. Washington has kept open its offer to Pyongyang to restart the Six Party Talks along with South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, but progress on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula has not been apparent since negotiations fell apart in 2009.
