Secretary Pompeo speaks to meida after meeting with North Korean official
NEW YORK — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he doesn’t know if the U.S. will know Friday whether a summit with North Korea will happen June 12th, after meeting with top North Korean official Kim Yong Chol.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reported “good progress” in meetings with a top North Korean official Thursday as they sought to salvage an on-again, off-again summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Earlier, Trump told reporters that North Korean officials may come to Washington on Friday with a letter from Kim. The adversaries are eying the first summit between the U.S. and the North after six decades of hostility.
The high-stakes discussion in New York lasted a little more than two hours, until 11:25 a.m., well before the scheduled end at 1:30 p.m., according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the details of the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
After leaving the meeting venue at the residence of the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Pompeo tweeted that he and the North Korean had substantive talks on priorities for a potential summit. “Good progress today during our meetings with Kim Yong Chol and his team. #NorthKorea and the world would benefit greatly from the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Pompeo said.