Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration’s eyes are “wide open” when it comes to negotiating with North Korea ahead of a historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week” that his meeting with Kim allowed him to better understand the North Koreans and he thinks Kim better understood the American position. Pompeo said he thinks North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un understands the Trump administration’s mission in the upcoming summit that’s expected to come in the next two months, which the administration will approach skeptically.
“We had a good conversation. We talked about serious matters. He was very well-prepared. I hope I matched that,” Pompeo said. “We had an extensive conversation on the hardest issues that face our two country. I had a clear mission statement from president trump. When I left are there, Kim Jong Un understood the mission exactly as I have described it today. He was prepared to talk about that and lay out map to help us achieve the objective.”
However, that openness doesn’t mean the U.S. negotiating team is going to credulously trust Kim and his advisers during the talks.
“This administration has its eyes wide open. We know the history. We know the risks. We’re going to be very different,” Pompeo said. “We’re going to negotiate in a didn’t way than has been done before. We’re going to require the steps. We use the word irreversible with great intention.”
Trump and Kim are expected to meet either in May or June in a historic summit between the leaders of two countries that have been at odds since the Korean War in the 1950s.
Trump is pushing Kim to give up all his nuclear weapons and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
