South Korea said on Wednesday it is considering how to change a decades-old armistice with North Korea into a peace agreement, as U. S. officials confirmed an unprecedented top-level meeting with the North Korean leader.
WASHINGTON/SEOUL: U. S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that preparations were advancing for a first-ever summit with North Korea after CIA director Mike Pompeo visited Pyongyang and formed a « good relationship » with its leader Kim Jong Un.
Pompeo, who Trump has nominated to become his next secretary of state, became the first U. S. official known to have met Kim when he flew to Pyongyang to lay the groundwork the planned summit in which the U. S. president hopes to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
« Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea, » Trump tweeted. « Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearisation will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea! »
Trump said the meeting took place last week, but U. S. officials said Pompeo actually visited over the Easter weekend, which ran from March 31 to April 2.
The trip, which followed a North Korean invitation, was first broached through intelligence channels that his staff was using with North Korea’s spy service, a U. S. official said.
It provides the strongest sign yet of Trump’s willingness to become the first serving U. S. president to meet a North Korean leader as he seeks to resolve a crisis over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States.
Trump said on Tuesday he believed there was a lot of goodwill in the diplomatic push, but added it was possible the summit – which the president had earlier said could take place in late May or early June – may not happen, in which case the United States and its allies would maintain pressure on North Korea through sanctions.
U. S. officials said the visit by Pompeo, one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, was arranged by South Korean intelligence chief Suh Hoon with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, and was intended to assess whether Kim was prepared to hold serious talks about giving up his nuclear weapons.
