U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he will travel to North Korea next week in an effort to speed up negotiations on dismantling the country's nuclear weapons program.

In announcing what will be his fourth trip to North Korea, Pompeo also said he has named Stephen Biegun, vice president of international governmental affairs for Ford Motor Co., as the U.S. special representative to North Korea.

Pompeo said he and Biegun will travel to North Korea together "to make further diplomatic progress toward our objective" of the final, fully verified denuclearization of the North.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said later that the top U.S. diplomat has no plans to meet with the North's leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip. Pompeo was also unable to do so in his last visit to Pyongyang in July.

"We have no expectations of meeting with Chairman Kim. That is not a part of this trip," she said in a news briefing, referring to Kim's title in the country's Workers' Party of Korea.

North Korea has yet to take credible measures toward abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles despite Kim's commitment to "complete" denuclearization in a historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.

Citing Biegun's rich experience on foreign policy at the White House and on Capitol Hill, Pompeo said, "I'm fully confident that he will be able to lead our mission in ensuring a secure future for the American people and we hope a far brighter future for the people of North Korea."

Speaking alongside Pompeo, Biegun said that now that Trump "has created an opening," he and other administration officials must seize "every possible opportunity to realize the vision for a peaceful future of the people of North Korea."

"I will work closely with my colleagues here at the State Department and throughout the U.S. government, as well as our allies and partners around the world, to achieve our shared goal of a safer and more peaceful world," he said.

Biegun served as executive secretary of the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and as chief of staff for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.