Tag: Mike Pompeo

Some interesting quotes from Kim Jong-un in Mike Pompeo’s new book:

North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un are not bothered at all by the U.S. military presence in South Korea, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued in a memoir published Tuesday.

They rather consider U.S. troops in South Korea as a protection against Chinese dominance, according to Pompeo.

Pompeo said the North Korean leader had raised the issue of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises during their first meeting in Pyongyang.

“I insinuated that he was a little hypocritical to get worked up about them, given how his planes and rockets could within minutes, or perhaps seconds, lay waste to the city of Seoul, South Korea, a city of ten million people and only a few dozen kilometers from the demilitarized zone (DMZ),” he wrote. (…..)

Pompeo said he had also told Kim that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had “consistently told the United States that American forces leaving South Korea would make Chairman Kim happy.”

“At this, Kim laughed and pounded on the table in sheer joy, exclaiming that the Chinese were liars,” wrote Pompeo.

“He (Kim) said that he needed the Americans in South Korea to protect him from the CCP, and that the CCP needs the Americans out so they can treat the peninsula like Tibet and Xinjiang,” he added.

Pompeo also offered to U.S. policymakers: “expanding U.S. missile and ground capabilities on the Korean Peninsula won’t bother the North Koreans at all.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Kim also told Pompeo that he was willing to denuclearize which I have never believed. So saying that he doesn’t mind the US military presence in the ROK just may just be something Kim may have thought Pompeo wanted to hear.

Yes this would have been an unconventional way to begin an introduction:

Former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo wrote in his new memoir that his secret meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un in 2018 began with a “joke about assassination.”

“This small, sweating, evil man tried to break the ice with all the charm you would expect from a mass murderer. ‘Mr. Director,’ he opened, ‘I didn’t think you’d show up. I know you’ve been trying to kill me,’” Pompeo’s memoir, which Fox News obtained a copy of, reads.  

“My team and I had prepared for this moment, but ‘a joke about assassination’ was not on the list of ‘things he may say when he greets you.’ But I was, after all, director of the CIA, so maybe his bon mot made sense,” he added. 

Pompeo’s memoir, “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,” is set to be released on Jan. 24 amid speculation that the former Trump Cabinet secretary could announce a 2024 presidential run. Pompeo said last month that he will announce his 2024 plans this spring.

In the first chapter, obtained by Fox News, Pompeo writes his meeting with Kim was a “complete secret” and his goal was to “correct the failed efforts of the past that had not eliminated North Korea’s nuclear weapons of mass destruction.” After the North Korean leader opened with an assassination joke, Pompeo said he responded in kind.

“I decided to lean in with a little humor of my own: ‘Mr. Chairman, I’m still trying kill you.’ In the picture taken seconds after that exchange, Kim is still smiling. He seemed confident that I was kidding,” Pompeo said in the memoir.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans are unhappy about comments Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently made:

 North Korea’s foreign minister on Friday called U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a “poisonous plant of American diplomacy” and vowed to “shutter the absurd dream” that sanctions will force a change in Pyongyang.

The North’s blistering rhetoric may dim the prospect for an early resumption of nuclear negotiations between the countries. A senior U.S. diplomat said earlier this week that Washington was ready to restart the talks, a day after U.S. and South Korean militaries ended their regular drills that Pyongyang called an invasion rehearsal.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho made the comments to protest Pompeo’s remarks in an interview in which he said that Washington will maintain crippling sanctions on North Korea unless it denuclearizes.

Ri said he couldn’t just let the “reckless remarks” by Pompeo pass by him because they came amid a possible restart of the nuclear talks. Ri said Pompeo is a “brazen” man because he “had begged for” North Korean denuclearization and improved bilateral ties when he visited Pyongyang and met leader Kim Jong Un several times.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but I don’t put too much stock into this tit-for-tat exchange; they have wanted Pompeo gone since this past April. This is all posturing for negotiations on a denuclearization deal. Once the North Koreans start going after President Trump that is when you know the negotiations are officially over because Trump will respond in kind. I don’t see this happening until next year which is the timeframe Kim Jong-un has given to try and work out a deal.

This all comes down to if the Trump administration wants to sign a “pretend denuclearization” deal to make the North Korea problem go away for the next election cycle or have it dominate headlines next year when Kim Jong-un restarts long range missile testing because a deal isn’t reached.

It looks like if the the North Koreans want a deal, they are going to have to get one by going through Mike Pompeo first:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he will continue to lead nuclear talks with North Korea, dismissing the regime’s call for his replacement.   

In a news conference held after a meeting between U.S. and Japanese foreign and defense ministers, Pompeo said “nothing’s changed,” which is viewed as an open dismissal to North Korea’s request for his replacement with a “more mature” negotiator who can better communicate with the North. 

Pompeo said the U.S. continues to work to negotiate and that he is still in charge of the team. 

He said President Trump is obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it will be his team and Special Representative Stephen Biegun who will continue to lead U.S. efforts to achieve what the North Korean leader committed to do in June last year, which was to denuclearize.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but this seems like a miscalculation by North Korea if they thought President Trump would replace Pompeo.

It appears that the North Koreans are trying to get President Trump to remove anyone from negotiations that opposes their “pretend denuclearization” strategy:

North Korea is urging the U.S. government to remove Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from the current nuclear negotiations. 

Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Thursday ran an interview with the director of the North America desk of the North Korean Foreign Ministry.

The official said rather than Pompeo, Pyongyang hopes for a more amicable and seasoned official to represent Washington should the stalled North Korea-U.S. negotiations resume. 

Arguing that Pompeo caused the collapse of the Hanoi talks, the official said it is fortunate that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un maintains good relations with U.S. President Donald Trump.

North Korea and Pompeo have had a rocky relationship.

In a briefing to foreign diplomats in Pyongyang on March 15, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui condemned Pompeo and White House National Security Advisor John Bolton for obstructing the talks in Hanoi.

KBS World News

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear to anyone objectively viewing this that the Trump administration is playing good cop, bad cop with Kim Jong-un:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday acknowledged that he saw North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “tyrant,” potentially throwing cold water on dialogue with a regime that considers its supreme leader unassailable. 

Speaking to the Senate Appropriation Committee, Pompeo’s comments came as an affirmative answer to a senator’s question on whether he considers Kim a “tyrant” in the likes of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. 

“Sure. I’m sure I’ve said that,” Pompeo replied. 

The secretary’s words were in stark contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump’s own last year when he said he “fell in love” with Kim and the praise he has lavished on the North Korean leader since. Even after his second summit with Kim in Vietnam fell apart in February, the president has maintained they continue to share a “very good” relationship. 

In spite of the failed summit, Pyongyang has held back from criticizing Trump directly, saying that aides like Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton persuaded Trump to walk out. The North has since expressed interest in a third summit with Trump to work things out, an idea which was reciprocated by both Pompeo and Bolton on different occasions. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but President Trump is likely being nice to Kim Jong-un so he won’t get blamed for when negotiations ultimately fail. He is leaving the tough talk and negotiations up to Pompeo and Bolton.

This is probably another reason why the Kim regime is busy courting Russian support, in order to influence members of the United Nations to not strongly implement sanctions against North Korea:

The US government appears to be tightening the reins on the international community’s implementation of sanctions against North Korea. After the second North Korea-US summit ended without a joint agreement, the US first articulated the tough stance that it won’t lift sanctions until the North has completely denuclearized and then pushed the UN to keep member states on board with the tough sanctions.

On Mar. 13, the US State Department announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Washington, DC, that same day. During the meeting, the State Department said, the two leaders had discussed a range of issues, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, developments in Venezuela and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

In regard to the Korean Peninsula, Pompeo appears to have told Guterres about the results of the North Korea-US summit and asked for his cooperation in implementing the UN Security Council’s sanctions against North Korea. A yearly report by a panel of experts that was released by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea the previous day addressed North Korea’s violations of the sanctions, including ship-to-ship transfers. In recent days, Pompeo has been emphasizing that sanctions on North Korea were the decision not of the US but of the UN Security Council and that the US has built a completely international coalition to implement those sanctions.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link.

I have been suspecting that once the US mid-term elections were over that the White House would begin taking a harder line on North Korea’s denuclearization.  This meeting cancelation could be the first sign of it:

High-level talks between the U.S. and North Korea set for this week in New York have been postponed.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the vice chairman of the North Korean ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Kim Yong-chol on Thursday has been called off.

Without providing a reason, the department said the two sides will reconvene talks when their respective schedules permit, adding the U.S. remains focused on fulfilling the commitments agreed to by their leaders in June.  [KBS World Radio]

Here is more “pretend denuclearization” from the Kim regime:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un invited U.S. nuclear experts to verify the permanent dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday.

The U.S. State Department reported in a statement that Kim had “invited inspectors” to visit the Punggye-ri testing site, where all of North Korea’s six underground nuclear tests took place starting from 2006, to confirm that “it has been irreversibly dismantled.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I would hope the US Secretary of State would realize that this is not denuclearization.  It has long been reported that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site is largely unusable now due to the mountain beginning to collapse.  For all we know the North Koreans could have their slave labor teams busy drilling caverns into another mountain right now for a new test site.

If the Kim regime was serious about confidence building measures they would ship some nuclear material out of the country.  Of course that would be real denuclearization when what they want is “pretend denuclearization“.