Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday he is “very hopeful that the conditions that have been set by” President Donald Trump will “give us this chance” for a “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” on the Korean peninsula.
Pompeo, confirmed by the Senate just last week, spoke to ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl on the network’s “This Week” program while on an official visit to Saudi Arabia.
Noting that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a historic meeting last week after Kim crossed the border separating their two nations, Pompeo said the meeting was “a big deal” for denuclearization negotiations and the United States’ ultimate objective.
“The objective remains the same: complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. That has been the administration’s goal,” Pompeo said. “President Trump has put economic pressure on the North Koreans, and it appears to have given us an opening, this real opportunity for something that would be transformative for the world if we can achieve it.”
Although Pompeo expressed his optimism for a favorable outcome, he emphasized that Trump administration officials have their “eyes wide open” and have no intention of being fooled by North Korea.
Pompeo said the U.S. has “a long history of negotiating with North Korea,” but he reminded Americans that the North Koreans “repeatedly” have “taken actions only to find that those promises proved false or unworthy, or they were incapable of achieving them.”
The new chief U.S. diplomat said, however, that “this administration has its eyes wide open. We know the history. We know the risks. We’re going to be very different. We’re going to negotiate in a different way than has been done before. We’re going to require those steps that demonstrate that denuclearization is going to be achieved. We’re not going to take promises. We’re not going to take words. We’re going to look for actions and deeds.”
He added that “until such time, the president has made it incredibly clear we will keep the pressure campaign in place.”
In his prior job as CIA director, Pompeo met with Kim to negotiate and discuss U.S. and North Korean goals. Pompeo said that he “had a mission to begin to lay the groundwork for President Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un,” which has not yet been scheduled.
“There remains a great deal of work to do. But we at least have the opportunity here to do something that’s incredibly important,” Pompeo said. “Who knows how the ultimate discussions will go? There is a lot of work left to do, but I am very hopeful that the conditions that have been set by President Trump give us this chance.”
Pompeo said that Kim is “going to have to make a big decision” about whether or not he wants Trump’s “pressure campaign” to persist.
“Does he want the pressure campaign to continue? Does he want President Trump to continue to place him in the location that he finds himself today? Or is he looking for something big and bold and different, something that hasn’t happened before?” Pompeo said.
“The president has been very clear, Jonathan. We’re not going to allow Kim Jong-un to continue to threaten America. We’re not going to let him develop a program such that Americans are held at risk,” Pompeo said.
“I believe that one of the reasons that Kim Jong-un is engaged in this conversation is that the pressure campaign that has been applied by President Trump, and indeed by the world, has put them in an even more tenuous, more difficult position. And so I’m optimistic,” he continued.
Related: National Security Expert Praises Trump’s ‘Negotiating Genius’ on Korea
National security adviser John Bolton also emphasized Trump’s role in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table.
“I think it’s clear we’re here where we are today because of the pressure that the Trump administration has put on North Korea. Economic pressure, political, military pressure,” Bolton said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “That’s why we’re here now. And I think it’s up to the North Koreans to show us that they really do intend to give up nuclear weapons.”
Trump “is determined” to see the negotiations “through” and is “hopeful” that “we can get a real breakthrough” in denuclearizing North Korea,” Bolton said, noting that Trump administration officials are not “starry-eyed about what may happen here.”
“But we’re not naïve in the in the administration, and a lot’s going to ride on this meeting with Kim Jong-un,” Bolton said during a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday,” adding, “I think it [the summit] is going to happen; the dates and the places are still under discussion. I think the president is eager to do it as soon as possible.”
Trump’s national security adviser also addressed the president’s upcoming decision by May 12 on whether the U.S. will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
“It’s the president’s decision,” Bolton said. “My job is to give advice to the president. He’ll make that decision. It’s his call.”
For his part, Pompeo said during a press conference in Riyadh on Sunday that the U.S. is “determined to make sure [Iran] never possesses a nuclear weapon.”
“The Iran deal in its current form does not provide that assurance,” Pompeo said. “We will continue to work with our European allies to fix that deal. But if a deal cannot be reached, the president has said that he will leave that deal.”
PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.
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