Trump’s conditions for summit

IF I THINK IT’S NOT GOING TO BE FRUITFUL, WE’RE NOT GOING TO GO, SAYS US PRESIDENT Campaign to stop Pyongyang’s nucleur programme will continue.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he hoped an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would be successful after a recent visit to Pyongyang by CIA director Mike Pompeo, but warned he would call it off if he did not think it would produce results.

Trump told a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that his campaign of “maximum pressure” on North Korea would continue until Pyongyang gave up its nuclear weapons.

He also said Washington was negotiating for the release of three Americans held by North Korea and there was “a good chance of doing it”. He did not answer a reporter’s question as to whether that would be a condition for going ahead with the summit.

“I hope to have a very successful meeting [with Kim],” Trump said in Palm Beach, Florida.

“If I think that it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we’re not going to go,” he added. “If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave.”

Trump said earlier that Pompeo, one of his most trusted advisors and his pick to be the next US secretary of state, formed a “good relationship” with Kim when he became the first US official known to have met the North Korean leader.

US officials said Pompeo met Kim when he visited Pyongyang over the Easter weekend, which ran from March 31 to April 2, to lay the groundwork for the planned summit in which Trump hopes to persuade North Korea to abandon development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States.

“Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong-un in North Korea,” Trump tweeted earlier. “Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of