Trump gets ready for landmark encounter

Pompeo’s secret trip to Pyongyang lays the groundwork for meeting between US and North Korean leaders

President Donald Trump’s decision to send his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, on a secret trip to meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, reflects the president’s trust in and comfort with Pompeo, and how diplomats were sidelined in brokering what could be a landmark encounter between Trump and Kim.

Pompeo, nominated by Trump last month as secretary of state, played advance man for the president in Pyongyang, laying the groundwork for a planned meeting between the US and North Korean leaders that has been shrouded in mystery ever since the president unexpectedly agreed to it in early March.

“Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed,” Trump said in an early morning tweet before he went golfing with Japan’s visiting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearisation will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!”

Pompeo is still awaiting confirmation to his new post and faces a challenging vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where several Democrats have come out against him. The White House and Republicans seized on Pompeo’s trip as another reason for the Senate to confirm him, while Democrats said he had misled them by failing to disclose his mission, even in private conversations.

But the visit underscores the confidence that Trump has developed in Pompeo, a former Tea Party congressman who has emerged as one of the president’s closest advisers — a stark contrast to Rex Tillerson, whom Trump fired as secretary of state days after he accepted Kim’s invitation to meet.

It also underscores Trump’s unorthodox approach to one of the riskiest diplomatic gambits of his presidency. However trusted by the president, Pompeo is hardly a traditional emissary. He is not yet the nation’s chief diplomat but a lame duck as the nation’s spymaster.

Pompeo met with Kim on Easter Sunday, a senior official said, bringing along several aides from the CIA — but nobody from the State Department or the White House.

Some former administration officials expressed surprise that he returned from Pyongyang without any visible concessions, like the release of three Americans detained in North Korea. Pompeo raised the issue of the Americans, another official said, adding that the White House would continue to push for their release.

The administration also has not agreed on a date for the meeting of Trump and Kim, which officials said pointed to problems in settling on a site for the encounter.

North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World — big progress! Look forward to our Summit.” Donald Trump| US President

The problem is that security guarantees — of which key would be a peace deal — are what North Korea needs from the United States, not South Korea.” Shin Beom-chul| Senior fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul

But South and North Korea could agree on their intention to end the war and work toward a peace agreement, and pursue discussions with the involved countries.” Park Jae-jeok | Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul