The US has made a "real progress" with North Korea toward the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but still there is a long way to go, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday. Pompeo, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday in Pyongyang to discuss a future summit, told reporters that the two countries are back on a path toward denuclearisation.

"While there's still a long way to go and much work to do, we can now see a path to where we'll achieve the ultimate goal, which is the full and final verified denuclearisation of North Korea," Pompeo told reporters at the White House after a lunch with President Donald Trump. Pompeo returned from a Asia trip Monday night, during which travelled to Japan, South Korea, North Korea and China. Pompeo's trip was intended to set the table for a second summit between Trump and Kim, who held an historic summit in Singapore on June 12. On Indian-American Nikki Haley resigning as the US Ambassador to the UN, Pompeo said she was his "great partner.