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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over the third session of the 7th Central Committee meeting of the North Korean Workers’ Party in Pyongyang on Apr. 20. At the meeting

A positive atmosphere prevailed during three or four meetings between US Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un between the end of March and the beginning of April, Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun reported on Apr. 23.

“Kim Jong-un personally welcomed Mike Pompeo when he visited North Korea. The two of them met three or four times. Some progress appears to have been made toward a North Korea-US summit [scheduled for late May or early June],” the Asahi Shimbun quoted a source familiar with North Korea as saying. The newspaper reported that Kim was delighted to meet Pompeo, who he said “sees eye-to-eye with him,” suggesting his satisfaction with the results of the meeting. A senior official in the American government who is apparently a CIA agent is still in North Korea in an apparent attempt to coordinate the upcoming summit and maximize the results of Pompeo and Kim’s meeting.

According to the report in the Asahi Shimbun, Pompeo and five other American government officials were provided with basic information about North Korea and Kim by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) before heading to the North. Kim and Pompeo met on the first day of the visit. During this meeting, Kim reportedly conveyed to Pompeo his willingness to completely dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program, without asking for the withdrawal of American troops from the Korean Peninsula. During Pompeo’s visit to the North, which lasted for three days, he met with Kim three or four times, and North Korean Workers' Party (KWP) Central Committee Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol was also present at these meetings, the newspaper reported.

So far, Kim has indirectly expressed his commitment to denuclearization on two occasions. The first time was to Blue House National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong when Chung visited North Korea at the beginning of March at the head of a South Korean special delegation. During this meeting, Kim said that “we would have no reason to possess nuclear weapons if the military threat to North Korea were resolved and the security of our regime were guaranteed.”

When Kim visited China at the end of March, he also told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was the final wish of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. “If South Korea and the US will respond to our efforts in good faith by setting the stage for stability and by taking gradual and simultaneous steps to bring about peace, the issue of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be resolved,” Kim told Xi. If the Asahi Shimbun’s report is true, then Kim expressed his commitment to denuclearization for the third time to the special envoy of US President Donald Trump. The newspaper concluded that Kim’s meeting with Pompeo has apparently convinced Trump that Kim is really committed to denuclearization.

But in order to actually achieve denuclearization, there are still many hurdles that North Korea and the international community must clear. There first needs to be a freeze on the nuclear weapon and missile tests and then take steps to disable and dismantle its nuclear facilities. After this, North Korea will have to inform the international community of each stage (freezing, disabling and dismantling), and the international community will have to verify these stages by sending inspectors.

In apparent reflection of such difficulties, Kim “rejected the inclusion of concrete measures or a timeframe for denuclearization in the North Korea-US summit,” the Asahi Shimbun reported. Instead, Kim said that the North Korea-US summit “needs to include some kind of compensation, such as the normalization of North Korea-US relations and the relaxation of sanctions that would result from that.”

By Kil Yoon-hyung, staff reporter

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