Pompeo: Fate of U.S.-NKorea summit rests with Kim Jong Un
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday he’s “very hopeful” a planned U.S.-North Korean summit will proceed but laid the fate of the historic meeting squarely with Kim Jong Un, who won’t be reassured by U.S. demands for “rapid denuclearization.”
The decision about whether the June 12 meeting in Singapore between Kim and President Donald Trump happens is “ultimately up to Chairman Kim,” Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Lawmakers’ questioning of Pompeo followed Trump’s comment Tuesday that “there’s a very substantial chance” the meeting would not proceed as scheduled.
Trump told reporters Wednesday, “whatever it is, we will know next week about Singapore and if we go I think it will be a great thing for North Korea.”
Amid the uncertainty, a White House team is headed to Singapore this weekend to work on logistics for the trip. White House spokesman Raj Shah said the effort would be led by Joe Hagin, deputy chief of staff for operations. Shah noted that an advance team goes out ahead of all scheduled presidential teams.
Also, the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea has cleared the way for all members of Kim’s delegation to travel to Singapore for the Trump meeting — even if they are on the U.N. sanctions blacklist, according to diplomats at the world body who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process was private. It also allows all delegation members to take home luxury goods whose import to North Korea is banned by the council. Kim himself is not on the sanctions blacklist, which bans travel and requires all countries to freeze assets.
If it goes ahead, it will be the first meeting between a U.S. and a North Korean leader during more than six decades of hostility, and it would come just months after the North’s rapid progress toward attaining a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America fueled fears of war. But the North unexpectedly pulled out of planned peace talks with South Korea last week, objecting to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, and also threatened to abandon the planned Trump-Kim meeting, accusing the U.S. of a “one-sided demand” that it give up its nuclear weapons.
North Korea took particular offense at comments by Trump’s hawkish national security adviser John Bolton that the U.S. was looking to the example of Libya, which relinquished its nuclear program in the early 2000s in exchange for sanctions relief. Libya’s longtime autocratic leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed several years later after a Western-backed military intervention.
Pompeo steered away from that comparison, but said the U.S. wants “rapid denuclearization, total and complete, that won’t be extended over time.” He said Bolton’s comments were alluding to the failure of past disarmament deals with North Korea “where in exchange for act x the United States sends a check across the transom,” Pompeo said. “It is indeed not our model.”
North Korea, which views its nukes as a guarantee its authoritarian regime won’t go the same way as those in Libya and Iraq, has said it wants a “phased and synchronous” approach to denuclearization, which neighboring China supports.
China’s visiting foreign minister said his country supports the summit being held at its currently scheduled time and venue and sees no reason for a delay.
“There is already good basis and necessary conditions at the moment,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters at a joint news conference at the State Department with Pompeo. “If you want to solve the problem, now is the time. If you want peace, now is the time. If you want to make history, now is the time.”
Trump hedged on the issue Tuesday. When asked if there could be an incremental approach, providing incentives along the way to the North, he said, “I don’t think I want to totally commit myself. But all in one would be a lot better.”
To date, North Korea has taken few concrete steps beyond halting the nuclear and missile tests that ratcheted up tensions last year. On Wednesday it escorted a group of international reporters, including an Associated Press Television crew, to witness the closure of its atomic test site. While that could set a positive tone ahead of the summit, it is not an irreversible move and would need to be followed by many more significant measures to meet Trump’s demands for real denuclearization.