Mike Pompeo paves the way in Pyongyang for Trump-Kim summit
THREE American prisoners detained in North Korea for more than a year have been greeted by Donald and Melania Trump after they landed back in the US.
THREE American prisoners detained in North Korea for more than a year were greeted by US President Donald Trump beneath a giant American flag after they landed back in the US.
Despite a middle-of-the-night landing, first lady Melania Trump and a host of senior administration officials joined Mr Trump to celebrate the occasion.
The US President and first lady boarded the medical plane on which the men travelled to take a private moment with them.
The men, Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim, were released on Wednesday amid a warming of relations between the US and North Korea.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo secured their release in Pyongyang after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on final plans for a Trump-Kim summit. The Americans had boarded Mr Pompeo’s plane out of North Korea without assistance and then transferred in Japan to a Boeing C-40 outfitted with medical facilities for the trip back to the US.
According to the White House, the three men would be transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre for evaluation and medical treatment. Their families were not on hand for the ceremony.
Shortly after they touched down on American soil in Alaska — for a refuelling stop on Wednesday afternoon — the State Department released a statement from the freed men.
“We would like to express our deep appreciation to the United States government, President Trump, Secretary Pompeo, and the people of the United States for bringing us home,” they said. “We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return. God Bless America, the greatest nation in the world.”
The last American to be released before this, college student Otto Warmbier, died in June 2017, days after he was repatriated to the US with severe brain damage.
Warmbier was arrested by North Korean authorities in January 2016, accused of stealing a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labour. His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit, accusing the government of torturing and killing their son. “We are happy for the hostages and their families,” the Warmbiers said in a statement on Wednesday. “We miss Otto.”
North Korea had accused the three Korean-Americans of anti-state activities. Their arrests were widely seen as politically motivated and had compounded the dire state of relations over the isolated nation’s nuclear weapons.
Of the newly released detainees, Kim Dong Chul, a South Korean-born US citizen, had been held the longest. The former Virginia resident was sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor after being convicted of espionage. He reportedly ran a trade and hotel service company in Rason, a special economic zone on North Korea’s border with Russia.
The other two detainees hadn’t been tried.
Kim Hak Song worked in agricultural development at an experimental farm run by the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, or PUST. The university is the only privately funded college in North Korea and was founded in 2010 with donations from Christian groups. He was detained last May for alleged anti-state activities.
Tony Kim, who also uses the name Kim Sang-duk, was detained in April 2017 at the Pyongyang airport. He taught accounting at PUST. He was accused of committing unspecified criminal acts intended to overthrow the government.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer celebrated the detainees’ return but warned that “we’ll see many more hostages” if the administration provides an incentive for imprisoning Americans.
“We are happy they’ve returned, but North Korea shouldn’t gain by taking Americans and then releasing them,” he said.
I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2018
Secretary Pompeo and his “guests†will be landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 2:00 A.M. in the morning. I will be there to greet them. Very exciting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2018
The release capped a dramatic day of diplomacy in Pyongyang. After Mr Pompeo’s 90-minute meeting with Kim Jong-un, he gave reporters a fingers-crossed sign when asked about the prisoners as he returned to his hotel. It was only after a North Korean emissary arrived a bit later to inform him that the release was confirmed.
The three had been held for periods ranging from one to two years. They were the latest in a series of Americans who have been detained by North Korea in recent years for seemingly small offences and typically freed when senior US officials or statesmen personally visited to bail them out.
The highly public and politically tinged arrival ceremony for the former prisoners organised by the White House was in stark contrast to the low-key and very private reception that the State Department had envisioned and carried out from the moment they took custody of them.
North Korea’s state-run media explicitly mentioned plans for the summit for the first time. Pyongyang has been exceptionally cautious about its public framing of Kim’s recent diplomatic moves, which are a major shift from the more aggressive focus on missile launches and nuclear development that heated tensions to a boil last year.
Singapore has emerged as the likely summit site, late this month or in early June, as Trump seeks to negotiate denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in his highest-stakes foreign policy effort yet. Mr Trump announced on Wednesday that the demilitarised zone between the Koreas would not host the summit. Mr Pompeo said the meeting would last one day and possibly a second.
Mr Trump made a point of publicly thanking North Korea’s leader for the prisoners’ release — “I appreciate Kim Jong-un doing this” — and hailed it as a sign of cooling tensions and growing opportunity on the Korean peninsula. Kim decided to grant amnesty to the three Americans at the “official suggestion” of the US president, said North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA.
POMPEO MAKES HISTORIC VISIT
This trip marked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s second visit to North Korea in less than six weeks. He said the two countries had already agreed on a date and location for the unprecedented summit, though he stopped short of providing details.
“We think relationships are building with North Korea,” Mr Trump said in a televised address earlier this morning. “We will see how it all works out. Maybe it won’t. But it can be a great thing for North Korea, South Korea and the entire world.”
While Kim has given up the last of his American prisoners, whom North Korea has often used as bargaining chips with the United States, the release could be aimed at pressuring Mr Trump to make concessions of his own in his bid to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, something it has not signalled a willingness to do.
DEAL IN THE BALANCE
“Plans are being made, relationships are building,” Mr Trump said of the planned summit during remarks otherwise focused on his decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“Hopefully, a deal will happen. And with the help of China, South Korea and Japan, a future of great prosperity and security can be achieved for everyone,” Mr Trump added.
Mr Pompeo made a secret visit to North Korea over the Easter weekend, becoming the first US official known to have met Kim, to lay the groundwork for the planned summit. The meeting occurred before Mr Pompeo’s Senate confirmation as secretary of state.
KIM JONG-UN: The fire and fury of staying in power
Mr Trump suggested that dropping out of the Iran nuclear accord, which he has frequently denounced as a bad deal, would send a “critical message” not just to Tehran but also to Pyongyang.
“The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them,” Mr Trump said.
But critics of Mr Trump’s decision to leave the Iran deal say it could undermine his credibility in North Korea’s eyes, fuelling doubts whether he would abide by any nuclear agreement.
NEIGHBOURS SEEK AGREEMENT
East Asia’s major powers meet in Tokyo on Wednesday to search for common ground on North Korea, while Washington’s top diplomat was also expected in Pyongyang, as a breakneck diplomatic dance gathers pace.
With the focus on the North exposing differences among its neighbours, the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China will be seeking a lowest-common-denominator agreement in the wake of a historic summit last week between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in.
Japan, which has by far the most hard line position of the North’s neighbours, has been left watching from the sidelines, uneasy at the pace of events and at what it sees as an unwarranted softening towards Pyongyang.
In announcing the three-way summit, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he hoped to “thoroughly discuss how we can have North Korea walk on a right path, resolve the abduction, missile and nuclear issues and create a bright future.”
The historical kidnapping of at least a dozen citizens by North Korean spies remains an emotive issue in Japan.
Mr Abe is likely to push for continued pressure on Pyongyang, including for “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”, Japanese media have reported.
South Korea’s President Moon, however, is expected to bat away such demands. An official in his office last week said Seoul wanted the three countries to simply endorse the Panmunjon Declaration signed by Kim and Mr Moon last month in the Demilitarised Zone that separates the two Koreas.
In an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun published on Tuesday, Mr Moon said he hoped for “Japan’s active support and co-operation on the future road toward the settlement of permanent peace on the peninsula, as well as for the success of the US-North Korea summit meeting.”
KIM MEETS XI
Earlier this week, Kim held talks with China’s Xi Jinping — their second meeting in six weeks — in which the North’s leader reiterated a commitment to denuclearisation.
Kim’s unannounced trip to the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian highlights efforts by the Cold War-era allies to mend relations that cooled as Beijing supported UN sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Beijing, long the North’s sole ally and economic buttress, has appeared eager to remain a key player in negotiations over Pyongyang’s weapons program.
In comments published on North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, Kim said “he would advance hand-in-hand with the close Chinese comrades in the long historic course of achieving peace and prosperity in the Korean peninsula”.
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