Kim’s ouster off the table, U.S. assures

N. Korea prospers if nukes surrendered, Pompeo says

The United States is assuring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that his ouster is not part of the agenda for the summit next month between Kim and President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

“We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure,” Pompeo said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

The promise not to invade North Korea or otherwise seek Kim’s overthrow would be incentive for him to give up his nuclear weapons.

“This has been a trade-off that has been pending for 25 years,” Pompeo said, referring to the long history of failed negotiations with Pyongyang as well as the North Korean narrative that the United States is a mortal threat.

Trump is scheduled to meet with Kim in Singapore on June 12 for an unprecedented summit. It will be the first time a sitting U.S. president meets the leader of North Korea.

On CBS’ Face the Nation, Pompeo said he had already provided assurances to Kim.

“I have told him that what

President Trump wants is to see the North Korean regime get rid of its nuclear weapons program, completely and in totality, and in exchange for that we are prepared to ensure that the North Korean people get the opportunity that they so richly deserve.”

“No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible, that the Americans would actually do this, would lead to the place where America was no longer held at risk by the North Korean regime,” Pompeo said.

The U.S. position is not new — Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson, also had stressed that the United States would not seek Kim’s ouster — but it carries additional weight now that Trump and Kim are to meet face to face. It is also significant because of past statements by both Pompeo and new White House national security adviser John Bolton about potential regime change in North Korea.

Pompeo said last year that the most dangerous element of the North Korean nuclear weapons problem “is the character who holds the control” over the weapons.

However, he told senators during his confirmation hearing last month that he does not support regime change in North Korea.

Bolton, speaking Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, said his own past advocacy for regime change in North Korea and in Iran were the views of “a free agent” and are irrelevant to his current job. “I’m the national security adviser to the president,” but Trump calls the shots, Bolton said.

As recently as December, Bolton said he favored “regime elimination” in North Korea.

Bolton said that if Trump can negotiate an agreement with Kim, it might be submitted to the Senate as a treaty as the next step in the ratification process.

“It’s entirely possible we could,” Bolton said, adding that to do so would address “one of the criticisms of the Iran deal.”

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was concluded as a compact among nations but was not submitted to the Senate for ratification by President Barack Obama’s administration. Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement last week.

On ABC’s This Week, Bolton said Trump will raise the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, as well as the detention of South Koreans, when he sees Kim. Both issues are of importance to U.S. allies. But Bolton hedged on how far Trump might take any human-rights criticism of a regime the United States has previously accused of mass incarceration, torture and starvation of civilians.

“This first meeting is going to be primarily on denuclearization,” Bolton said, adding that other issues could follow.

Kim is expected to seek swift relief from severe economic sanctions in exchange for steps to shut down his country’s nuclear program. Washington has insisted that Pyongyang completely abandon its nuclear program before the U.S. eases its “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

“He sees the chance of a breakthrough, but I don’t think he has stars in his eyes over this,” Bolton said of Trump.

On Face the Nation, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said getting North Korea to denuclearize is complicated because its program is “dramatically larger” than Iran’s, with miles of tunnels, multiple sites and existing weapons. Gates put the odds of immediate success as “very low.”

But Trump goes into the meeting “with a lot of cards to play,” Gates said, including a possible peace treaty, diplomatic recognition and a promise not to overthrow the regime.

DREAMS OF INVESTMENT

Pompeo said that if the summit leads to successful negotiations, then the outcome will draw private investment to North Korea. He said it would include helping North Korea build out its energy grid and develop its agriculture program so it can grow enough food for its people.

“Those are the kinds of things that, if we get what it is the president has demanded — the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea — that the American people will offer in spades,” he said.

Pompeo said a lot of work remains to achieve that goal.

“Our eyes are wide open with respect to the risks, but it is our fervent hope that Chairman Kim wants to make a strategic change,” he said. “A strategic change in the direction for his country and his people, and if he’s prepared to do that, President Trump is prepared to assure that this can be a successful transition.”

Pompeo went to North Korea last week to discuss preparations for the summit and returned with three U.S. citizens who had been detained in North Korea. The Pentagon said Sunday that they had been released from a Washington-area hospital and reunited with their families.

A Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Carla Gleason, said in a statement that the men “were grateful, in good spirits and coping well.”

Pompeo met for almost 90 minutes with Kim, his second face-to-face encounter with the North Korean leader, and he described him as professional and knowledgeable.

On CBS, Pompeo contrasted the Trump administration’s approach with those of previous presidents who tried to negotiate North Korea’s denuclearization.

“We’re hopeful that this will be different,” he said. “That we won’t do the traditional model, where they do something, and we give them a bunch of money, and then both sides walk away. We’re hoping this will be bigger, different, faster. Our ask is complete and total denuclearization of North Korea, and it is the president’s intention to achieve that. “

In exchange, he said, North Korea will get what Pompeo characterized as “our finest” — “Our entrepreneurs, our risk takers. Our capital providers.”

He said private equity, encouraged by sanctions relief, would help North Korea improve its electrical grid, infrastructure and agricultural production.

“We can create the conditions for real economic prosperity for the North Korean people that will rival that of the South,” he said.

That will be a heavy lift, however: The Central Intelligence Agency estimates 2017 per-capita gross domestic product for South Korea at $39,400 and North Korea’s at $1,700 in 2015, using the most recent figures available. North Korea’s per-capita GDP ranked it 214 out of 228 countries.

Information for this article was contributed by Carol Morello and Anne Gearan of The Washington Post; by Ros Krasny, Ryan Beene, Mark Niquette, Ben Brody and Jordan Yadoo of Bloomberg News; and by staff members of The Associated Press.

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