CIA Director Pompeo met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend
Source: Washington Post
CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Trump to meet with that countrys leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip.
The extraordinary meeting between one of Trumps most trusted emissaries and the authoritarian head of a rogue state was part of an effort to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and Kim about North Koreas nuclear weapons program, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because of the highly classified nature of the talks.
The clandestine mission, which has not previously been reported, came soon after Pompeo was nominated to be secretary of state.
Im optimistic that the United States government can set the conditions for that appropriately so that the president and the North Korean leader can have that conversation will set us down the course of achieving a diplomatic outcome that America so desperately America and the world so desperately need, Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week during his confirmation hearing.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-china-trade-dispute-looms-over-trump-summit-with-japans-abe/2018/04/17/2c94cb02-424f-11e8-bba2-0976a82b05a2_story.html
Mr.Bill
(24,253 posts)An American Presidential tradition since the 90s.
With probably the same results.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Our country thrives on diplomacy, openness, transparency, democracy.
This private transactional (self-dealing, for all we know) is just another assault on our American values.
Congress needs to start doing its constitutionally-mandated job.
onenote
(42,602 posts)Exhibit A: Nixon's trip to China, set up by secret meetings between Kissinger and Chinese officials.
More recently -- it was secret diplomatic efforts that preceded Obama's re-opening relations with Cuba.
And what "constitutionally-mandated" job in the realm of foreign relations is Congress not doing?