Pompeo in Asia Tour: Progress Scored over Trump-Kim Summit

Local Editor

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped to accelerate a second summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump as he kicked off an Asian trip Saturday featuring a meeting with North Korea's leader.

Pompeo arrived in Tokyo on the first leg of a tour that will take him to Pyongyang for a fourth time as the contours of a possibly historic US-North Korea deal take shape.

Speaking on the plane on the way from the United States, Pompeo said his aim was to "develop sufficient trust" between the historic foes to inch towards peace.

"Then we are also going to set up the next summit," said Pompeo.

However, he played down expectations for a major breakthrough, saying: "I doubt we will get it nailed but begin to develop options for both location and timing for when Chairman Kim will meet with the president again."

"Maybe we will get further than that."

In June, Trump met Kim in Singapore in the first-ever summit between the countries.

Trump scrapped a previously planned trip by his top diplomat to Pyongyang after what he said was insufficient progress towards implementing the terms of the Singapore declaration.

But the US president has also declared himself "in love" with the strongman in Pyongyang.

After Tokyo, Pompeo travels to Pyongyang and then on to South Korea, whose dovish president Moon Jae-in has served as a go-between for the two sides.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has given a hint of what a grand bargain between the two countries could look like.

In an interview with the Washington Post, she said the North could agree to dismantle Yongbyon, its signature nuclear site.

In exchange, the United States would declare a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War -- which concluded with an armistice rather than a full-blown peace treaty -- but North Korea would stop short of delivering an exhaustive list of its nuclear facilities, she said.

Pompeo refused to be drawn on the outlines of a deal, saying only that his "mission is to make sure that we understand what each side is truly trying to achieve."

After Seoul, Pompeo closes his trip Monday in China, North Korea's political and economic lifeline.

Source: news Agencies, Edited by website team