Pompeo to Visit North Korea Next Week to Meet With Kim Jong Un

Oct 02 2018, 9:41 PMOct 03 2018, 12:02 AMOctober 02 2018, 9:41 PMOctober 03 2018, 12:02 AM

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Pyongyang next week to meet with Kim Jong Un and prepare for a second summit between the North Korean leader and President Donald Trump.

The State Department’s announcement Tuesday of Pompeo’s trip, his fourth to North Korea, confirmed what he promised last week -- a visit soon to “make the final preparations” for another summit as the U.S. seeks a firm commitment that Kim will give up his nuclear weapons.

Unlike Pompeo’s most recent visit in July, he will meet with Kim and not just his deputies, according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

Trump and Kim held a summit in Singapore in June that generated tremendous attention but only vague intentions from Kim to work toward denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Pompeo’s Pyongyang visit, on Oct. 7, will be wedged between brief stops in Tokyo and Seoul, Nauert said. From Seoul, Pompeo will travel to Beijing before heading home.

“I think it shows forward progress and momentum that the secretary is making his fourth trip back in less than a year,” Nauert said. “Of course, we have quite a ways to go, but we look forward to the next steps in this conversation.”

The limited duration of the visit reflects the challenge the U.S. has in publicly pinning down Kim on what Pompeo insists was his private assurance that the regime was finally ready to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

After Pompeo’s July visit to North Korea, he characterized his talks as “productive and in good faith” only to be greeted hours later with a North Korean statement that described U.S. demands as “gangster-like” and “cancerous.”

All along, the challenge has been to align two competing strategies: Pompeo demands that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons entirely before any sanctions can be lifted, while Kim’s government wants step-by-step sanctions relief to accompany any steps it makes toward an eventual goal of denuclearization.

Pompeo’s lightning trip this time around -- he will travel to four countries, half a world away from Washington, over three days -- is in keeping with his practice, in the five months that he’s been the top U.S. diplomat, of keeping his travels abroad brief and relatively infrequent as compared to his predecessors.