WASHINGTON: CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently traveled to North Korea to meet with leader Kim Jong Un, a highly unusual, secret visit undertaken as the enemy nations prepared for a meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim within the next few months.
Two officials confirmed the trip to The Associated Press on Tuesday. The officials were not authorized to discuss the visit publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Washington Post, which first reported Pompeo’s meeting with Kim, said it took place over Easter weekend — just over two weeks ago, shortly after the CIA chief was nominated to become secretary of state.
Trump, who was hosting Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Florida estate, said the US and North Korea were holding direct talks at “extremely high levels” in preparation for a possible summit with Kim. He said five locations were under consideration for the meeting, which was slated to take place by early June.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump and Kim had not spoken directly.
Kim’s offer for a summit was initially conveyed to Trump by South Korea last month, and the president shocked many by accepting it. US officials indicated over the past two weeks that North Korea’s government had communicated directly with Washington that it was ready to discuss its nuclear weapons program.
It would be the first-ever summit between US and North Korea during more than six decades of hostility since the Korean War. North Korea’s nuclear weapons and its capability to deliver them by ballistic missile pose a growing threat to the US mainland.
The US and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, complicating the arrangements for contacts between the two governments. It is not unprecedented for US intelligence officials to serve as a conduit for communication with Pyongyang.
In 2014, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper secretly visited North Korea to bring back two American detainees.
China, North Korea’s closest ally, said it welcomes direct contact and talks between the US and North Korea after news emerged of Pompeo’s meeting with Kim.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing Wednesday that Beijing also hopes the two sides will work on a political resolution of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and set up a peace mechanism. The peninsula is technically still in a state of war after fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
At his confirmation hearing last week to become secretary of state, Pompeo played down expectations for a breakthrough deal on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons at the planned Trump-Kim summit, but he said it could lay the groundwork for a comprehensive agreement on denuclearization.
“I’m optimistic that the United States government can set the conditions for that appropriately so that the president and the North Korean leader can have that conversation and will set us down the course of achieving a diplomatic outcome that America and the world so desperately need,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
After a year of escalating tensions, when North Korea conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests that drew world condemnation, Kim has pivoted to international outreach.
The young leader met China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing in late March, Kim’s first trip abroad since taking power six years ago. He is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the demilitarized zone between the rival Koreas on April 27.
CIA chief secretly meets with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
CIA chief secretly meets with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
North Korean leader Kim watches cruise missile tests with his daughter
- KCNA said the missiles hit target islands off North Korea’s west coast
SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his teenage daughter observed tests of strategic cruise missiles fired from a warship, state media reported Wednesday, as North Korea threatened responses to US-South Korean military drills.
Images sent by the Korean Central News Agency showed the two in a conference room looking at a screen showing weapons being fired from the Choe Hyon, a year-old naval destroyer.
Kim Jong Un watched the missiles launches via video on Tuesday and underscored the need to maintain “a powerful and reliable nuclear war deterrent,” KCNA reported in a dispatch that did not mention his daughter.
The girl, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae and about 13, has accompanied her father at numerous prominent events including military parades and weapons launches since late 2022. South Korea’s spy agency assessed last month Kim Jong Un was close to designating her as his heir.
KCNA said the missiles hit target islands off North Korea’s west coast. It quoted Kim Jong Un as saying the launches were meant to demonstrate the navy’s strategic offensive posture and get troops familiarized with weapons firings.
Kim Jong Un observed similar cruise missile launches from the Choe Hyon in person last week, but his daughter was not seen at that appearance.
Tuesday’s missile firings came after the start of the springtime US-South Korean military drills that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
On Tuesday, Kim Jong Un’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, warned the drills reveal again the US and South Korea’s “inveterate repugnancy toward” North Korea. She said North Korea will “convince the enemies of our war deterrence.”
The 11-day Freedom Shield drill that began Monday is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise and will be accompanied by a field training program. North Korea often reacts to the two sets of training with its own weapons tests.
