CIA chief met with NKorean leader about talks
CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a topsecret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Donald Trump to meet with that country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip.
The extraordinary meeting between one of Trump’s most-trusted emissaries and the authoritarian head of a rogue state was part of an effort to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and Kim about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because of the highly classified nature of the talks.
The clandestine mission came soon after Pompeo was nominated to be secretary of state.
Speaking at his Mara-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday, Trump appeared to allude to the extraordinary face-to-face meeting between Kim and Pompeo when he said the U.S. has had direct talks with North Korea “at very high levels.” The president didn’t elaborate.
Trump said that he would sit down with Kim probably in early June, if not sooner.
The United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, but U.S. diplomats have visited and Washington has used several quiet channels to communicate with Pyongyang.
“North Korea is coming along,” Trump said.
Trump also said he had given “my blessing” to planned discussions between South Korea and North Korea about bringing a formal end to the Korean War. Hostilities in the Korean War, which involved the United States, ended 65 years ago, but a peace treaty was never signed. A top South Korean official was quoted Tuesday as saying that a formal end to hostilities was on the agenda for the summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week in the demilitarized zone between the countries.
Pompeo’s meeting with Kim marks the highest-level meeting between the two countries since 2000, when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s father, to discuss strategic issues.
About a week after Pompeo’s trip to North Korea, U.S. officials said that officials there had directly confirmed that Kim was willing to negotiate about potential denuclearization, according to administration officials.