CIA Director Pompeo makes secret Pyongyang visit to prepare for summit
U.S. President Donald Trump said that high-level talks have started between officials of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as he will probably meet DPRK's top leader Kim Jong-un in May or early June outside the U.S..
In his talks with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida on Tuesday, Trump also said he had given his blessing to the inter-Korean talks aimed at formally ending the Korean War.
"We have had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels, with North Korea (the DPRK). I really believe there's a lot of good will; a lot of good things are happening."
Trump later clarified the talks by saying: "Let's leave it a little bit short of the highest level."
White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: "The president said the administration has had talks at the highest levels and added that they were not with him directly."
U.S. Secretary of State nominee and CIA Director Mike Pompeo had made a secret visit to DPRK over the Easter weekend and met with Kim, Trump confirmed on Twitter on Wednesday.
Contacts between the two sides in recent weeks have involved U.S. intelligence and State Department officials, according to the report.
Trump said: "We'll be having meetings with Kim Jong-un very soon. It will be - that will be taking place probably in early June or a little before that - assuming things go well."
As to the venue of the Trump-Kim summit, Trump said the U.S. is weighing five different locations, but none are located in the U.S..
Trump, however, also said the summit might not happen.
"It's possible things won't go well and we won't have the meetings, and we'll just continue to go along this very strong path that we've taken," he said. "But we will see what happens."
Trump also said Seoul and Pyongyang are "discussing an end to the war", and they have his blessing on that.
Seoul and Pyongyang were scheduled to hold a summit on April 27, the first in 11 years.
Zhang Liangui, a Korean studies expert at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said there are still many uncertainties in the dialogues between Trump and Kim.
Zhang said the U.S. never changed its stance on the denuclearization of Korean Peninsula. If the DPRK continues to hold an ambiguous attitude on this issue, the possibility of finally using force to resolve the issue still exists.
He said Pyongyang still wants to talk, but it wants Washington to recognize it as a nuclear-armed country.
Heather Nauert, U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said on Tuesday that the "big part" of the inter-Korean dialogue will be Trump's upcoming meeting with Kim, whenever that takes place.
Abe stressed to Trump "the importance of achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, as well as the abandonment of missile programs of North Korea", according to a White House news release.
"Tokyo is less certain about how the president views the summit with the North, and Abe's visit will therefore be critical," said Michael J. Green, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
According to Ruan Zongze, senior research fellow of the China Institute of International Studies, Abe's visit has an intention to fulfill Japan's "private goals".
Tokyo wants to use the chance to ask Washington to help solve its disputes with Pyongyang over the kidnapping of hostages, among other issues, which may cause the Korean Peninsula discussions to get out of focus, Ruan said.
Abe on Tuesday said he would "share understanding and recommendation" with Trump during his two-day visit.
