CIA Chief Made Secret Trip To North Korea

confirmed.

A “good relationship” was formed at the meeting last week, Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

News of the visit first emerged on Tuesday. US officials were quoted as saying the aim was to prepare a summit between Mr Trump and Mr Kim.

Mr Trump had earlier alluded to high-level direct talks with Pyongyang.

But the unexpected and clandestine meeting marks the highest level US contact with North Korea since 2000.

“We have had direct talks at… extremely high levels,” Mr Trump said from Florida, where he is hosting Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The president added that he gave his “blessing” for talks between the South and North to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War.

South Korea has also signalled that it may pursue a formal resolution of the conflict.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and Mr Kim are due to meet next week. The two sides have agreed to broadcast parts of the summit live, the South’s state news agency Yonhap reported.

Mr Trump insisted on Tuesday that the two countries were “very unified on the subject of North Korea”, and Mr Abe praised the US president’s handling of the North Korea issue.

However, observers say Mr Abe’s goal for his US trip will be to persuade the US president as much as he can not to sway from the West’s hard line on Pyongyang.

The Japanese prime minister has repeatedly sought to portray a close personal relationship with Mr Trump and was the first foreign leader to meet him in New York after his election victory in 2016.

Source: BBC