US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday the Trump administration remains ready to resume talks with North Korea now, although he regretted that a meeting between the two sides is unlikely at an Asian security conference this week in Thailand.
Pompeo said he and the administration's chief negotiator Stephen Biegun had hoped to meet with a senior North Korean official while in Bangkok for the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations forum.
No such meeting had been formally scheduled and the North's foreign minister was not expected at the three-day event in the Thai capital, but Pompeo said it looked increasingly like those hopes would be dashed.
"We stand ready to continue our diplomatic conversation with the North Koreans," Pompeo told reporters at a joint news conference with the Thai foreign minister.
"I regret that it looks like I'm not going to have the opportunity to do that while I'm here in Bangkok, but we're ready to go."
"We're looking forward to a chance to reconnect with them in a formal way diplomatically."
KCNA said Kim expressed satisfaction over the test firing and said the newly developed rocket system would soon serve a "main role" in his military's land combat operations and create an "inescapable distress to the forces becoming a fat target of the weapon."