Pompeo Holds Talks With Top North Korean Official Aimed At Salvaging Summit

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a top North Korean official opened talks Thursday in New York City as they try to revive plans for a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Pompeo met with Kim Yong Chol, one of Kim Jong Un's closest aides, at the three-bedroom apartment residence of the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations.

"We have teams in Singapore and at the DMZ working with their North Korean counterparts to prepare for President Trump and Chairman Kim's expected summit in Singapore," Pompeo said.

Despite his optimism, he also made it clear the president is not yet ready to sit down with the North Korean leader.

"The conditions are putting President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un in a place where we think there can be real progress made by the two of them meeting," said Pompeo. "It does no good if we're in a place where we don't think there's a real opportunity to place them together. We've made real progress toward that in the last 72 hours."

"The potential summit between @POTUS and Chairman Kim presents #DPRK with a great opportunity to achieve security and economic prosperity," Pompeo tweeted shortly before Thursday's meeting began. "The people of #NorthKorea can have a brighter future and the world can be more peaceful."

Kim Yong Chol is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the U.S. in 18 years. The two officials had discussions over what Pompeo described on Twitter as a "good working dinner" on Wednesday.

Pompeo, who spoke with Trump on Wednesday night and with national security adviser John Bolton early Thursday, was accompanied by Andrew Kim, the head of a CIA unit assigned to work on North Korea, and Mark Lambert, the head of the State Department's Korea desk. It was not immediately clear who accompanied Kim Yong Chol on the North Korean side.

"We are doing very well with North Korea," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing on trip to Texas. "Our secretary of state is having very good meetings. I believe they will be coming down to Washington on Friday. A letter being delivered to me from Kim Jong Un. It is very important to them."

The president said "we will see what happens" but that "hopefully we will have a meeting on the (June) 12th."

Trump also revealed that Kim Yong Chol and the Korean Delegation will be coming to Washington on Friday.

"A letter is going to be delivered to me from Kim Jong Un. So I look forward to seeing what's in the letter, but it's very important to them. So they'll probably be coming down to Washington on Friday," he told reporters.

But Kim, in a meeting with Russia's foreign minister on Thursday, complained about "U.S. hegemonism," a comment that may complicate the discussions in New York.

"As we move to adjust to the political situation in the face of U.S. hegemonism, I am willing to exchange detailed and in-depth opinions with your leadership and hope to do so moving forward," Kim told Sergey Lavrov.

The talks come as preparations for the highly anticipated summit in Singapore were barreling forward on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, despite lingering uncertainty about whether it will really occur, and when.

As Kim and Pompeo were meeting in New York, other U.S. teams were meeting with North Korean officials in Singapore and in the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone.

"If it happens, we'll certainly be ready," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the Singapore summit. Regarding the date for the meeting, she added, "We're going to continue to shoot for June 12."

Trump announced that Kim Yong Chol was coming to New York for talks with Pompeo in a tweet on Tuesday in which he said he had a "great team" working on the summit.

That was a shift from last week, when Trump announced in an open letter to Kim Jong Un that he had decided to "terminate" the summit following a provocative statement from the North.

Kim Yong Chol is one of the few aides who can speak for Kim Jong Un. He's also a former spy chief who was sanctioned by the U.S. because of his role in the 2014 cyber-hacking of Sony Pictures and the bombing of a South Korean ship, CBS2's Janelle Burrell reported. He had to get a special waiver to enter the U.S.

"The conversation is going to be focused on the denuclearization of the peninsula," Sanders said. "That's what these ongoing conversations are centered on."

On Wednesday, Pompeo seemed hopeful about the summit being back on, saying on Twitter, "We are committed to the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Pompeo has traveled to Pyongyang twice in recent weeks for meetings with Kim Jong Un and has said there is a "shared understanding" between the two sides about what they hope to achieve in talks.

South Korean media speculated that Pompeo could make a third trip to Pyongyang and that Kim Yong Chol was carrying a personal letter from Kim Jong Un and might push to travel to Washington to meet with Trump.

The White House emphasized that it has remained in close contact with South Korean and Japanese officials as preparations for the talks continue.

Sanders said Trump will host Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on June 7 to coordinate their thinking ahead of the summit. Trump hosted South Korean President Moon Jae-in last week.

Moon, who has lobbied hard for nuclear negotiations between Trump and Kim Jong Un, held a surprise meeting with the North Korean leader on Saturday in an effort to keep the summit alive.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

In:
• Kim Jong Un
• Donald Trump
• Mike Pompeo