CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM
But U.S. will keep pressure on North Korea, officials say
Washington views the release of three detained Americans as a trust-building measure ahead of the planned summit with North Korea.
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea released three American prisoners into the custody of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo here Wednesday, an action the White House welcomed as a “gesture of goodwill” ahead of a planned summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Trump made the announcement in a morning tweet as Pompeo flew the three men out of Pyongyang on his government plane, saying they were in good health and that he planned to meet them upon their arrival early Thursday at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.
The secretary is “in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting,” Trump wrote. In a followup tweet, he called it: “Very exciting!”
The dramatic disclosure capped a 13-hour visit by Pompeo to the North Korean capital during which he met with several top officials, including Kim for 90 minutes, and finalized a time and location for the leaders summit, which is expected in late June.
Trump had not made the freeing of the three Americans, Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song, a prerequisite for the summit. But the move was viewed in Washington as a necessary trust-building measure ahead of the hardknuckle negotiations over the North’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
The president had harshly criticized the Kim regime over human rights violations, repeatedly raising its treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died last summer days after being released in a coma from 17 months of captivity. The release of the other three Americans, who were examined by a physician traveling with Pompeo and reportedly boarded the plane without assistance, allowed Trump to claim a victory in his audacious diplomatic gambit.
“Frankly, nobody thought this was going to happen and I appreciate Kim Jong Un doing this and allowing them to go,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Yet even as Trump expressed optimism about the summit, other senior administration officials sounded caution that the United States will not prematurely soften its stance toward North Korea. Last year, the North conducted nuclear and ballistic missile tests in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, prompting Trump to derided Kim as “Little Rocket Man.”
In a statement, Vice President Mike Pence vowed that the United States “will not let off the pressure until we achieve full denuclearization.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the release of the Americans a “step in the right direction” but emphasized that “total denuclearization remains our top priority.”
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commended Trump and Pompeo for their efforts. But he added: “Let’s also remember that we have gotten to this point with North Korea before and things fell apart.”
In 2014, North Korea released two American prisoners into the custody of Obama administration officials, but Pyongyang continued to flout economic sanctions and public recriminations by conducting more weapons tests.
On Wednesday, a North Korean official told Pompeo that Kim had granted the three Americans “amnesty’ on charges of espionage and hostile acts against the government, charges that U.S. officials have said were bogus. The three detainees were treated as “prisoners of war” and had not been seen since June, when a State Department official was allowed a brief visit with them while collecting Warmbier.