{"id":63358,"date":"2018-04-18T04:28:41","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=63358"},"modified":"2018-04-18T04:28:41","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:28:41","slug":"cia-chief-pompeo-met-kim-lay-ground-trump-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/cia-chief-pompeo-met-kim-lay-ground-trump-summit.html","title":{"rendered":"CIA Chief Pompeo Met Kim to Lay Ground for Trump Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

CIA Chief Pompeo Met Kim to Lay Ground for Trump Summit<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

CIA Director Mike Pompeo traveled to North Korea a few weeks ago to meet Kim Jong Un to prepare for a possible summit with President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter, raising optimism the meeting could produce a deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo — who\u2019s awaiting confirmation as secretary of state — made the secret visit during the weekend of March 31 and April 1, said the people, who asked not to be identified. The trip, which was first reported by the Washington Post, comes ahead of the unprecedented meeting between the U.S. and North Korean leaders, which Trump said Tuesday could come by \u201cearly June or before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. president told reporters the administration had \u201cstarted talking to North Korea directly.\u201d \u201cWe have had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels with North Korea,\u201d Trump said after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes the proposed summit all the more likely to happen,\u201d Suzanne DiMaggio, director and senior fellow at New America in New York, who facilitated the talks in Oslo that resulted in ailing U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier\u2019s release from North Korea. \u201cIt is reassuring that the Trump administration is taking serious steps to prepare for that historic interaction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pompeo trip is part of a global diplomatic scramble after Trump\u2019s surprise decision last month to meet Kim in an effort to break the decades-long impasse over North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons program. The Central Intelligence Agency chief arrived in North Korea just days after Kim returned from his own surprise visit to Beijing — his first trip outside his country as leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Mount, a senior fellow with the Federation of American Scientists, called direct U.S. contact with Kim \u201ca pretty dramatic development.\u201d \u201cBefore the summit can happen, talks have to happen at a very high level\u201d to establish an agenda and other details, Mount said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. and North Korea are discussing several locations for the Trump-Kim meeting, a person familiar with the talks told Bloomberg earlier. Potential sites include Geneva and several venues in Asia and Southeast Asia, said the official, who declined to further identify the sites.<\/span><\/p>\n

The person said the U.S. wasn\u2019t considering Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul or Panmunjom, the site of the Korean armistice signing where South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet Kim next week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moon\u2019s meeting with Kim is expected to lay the ground for Trump\u2019s meeting. The two Koreas are discussing plans to announce an official end to the military conflict between the two countries that are still technically at war, South Korea\u2019s Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified South Korean official.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump also said he\u2019s given South Korea his \u201cblessing\u201d to negotiate a peace deal with North Korea, and that five locations are under consideration for his meeting with Kim. South Korea never formally ended its war with North Korea, though the armed conflict concluded with a cease-fire in 1953.<\/span><\/p>\n

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump hasn\u2019t spoken directly with the North Korean leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ending a Very Old War<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump suggested he was responsible not only for the negotiations on a formal peace treaty ending the war, but also the success of this year\u2019s Winter Olympics in South Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been very generous that without us and without me in particular, I guess, they wouldn\u2019t be discussing anything and the Olympics would have been a failure,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAs you know, North Korea participated in the Olympics and it was really quite an Olympics. It was quite a success. That would not have happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Abe praised Trump\u2019s leadership, saying his \u201cunwavering conviction as well as his determination\u201d has made talks with North Korea possible. He said he hoped that Trump would raise the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, \u201ca Japanese priority issue,\u201d and Trump said he would.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will bring up the abductees. We\u2019ll bring up many different things,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI know that\u2019s been a very big factor for you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump said he will meet with Kim in \u201cearly June or before that assuming things go well.\u201d If they don\u2019t the summit with the North Korean leader might not happen, he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible things won\u2019t go well and we won\u2019t have the meetings and we\u2019ll just continue to go on this very strong path we have taken,\u201d Trump said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-04-17\/trump-says-south-korea-has-his-blessing-for-north-korea-peace<\/span><\/p>\n

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