Washington sources reported that US Secretary of State nominee and CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a secret visit to North Korea over the Easter weekend and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss a planned summit with US President Donald Trump. Meanwhile the US officials said Pompeo’s trip made him the most senior US official ever known to have met with Kim to become the first serving US president ever to meet a North Korean leader.
According to a US senior official briefed on the trip that Pompeo’s conversations fueled Trump’s belief that productive negotiations were possible with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but far from guaranteed. Moreover the visit 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.
Furthermore Pompeo told his Senate
confirmation hearing for the post of secretary of state this week he was
optimistic a course could be set at a Trump-Kim summit for a diplomatic outcome
with North Korea, but added that no one was under any illusion that a
comprehensive deal could be reached at that meeting.
