President Trump on Friday said he has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to put off his planned visit to North Korea and accused Pyongyang of slow-walking efforts to dismantle its nuclear program.
Trump wrote in a tweet that a high-level visit is not appropriate at “this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Pompeo was scheduled to make his fourth visit to North Korea next week to follow up on a framework agreement Trump reached with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The decision marks a rare admission from Trump that North Korea’s denuclearization is not going as well as hoped.
Trump proclaimed after his meeting in Singapore with Kim in mid-June that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat.”
Trump in the same series of tweets on Friday also accused China of not “helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were,” pointing to “our much tougher Trading stance” with the nation as the cause of the rift.
“Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved. In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!” Trump concluded.
The announcement comes a day after Pompeo named a Stephen Biegun — a senior executive with the Ford Motor Company — to be the State Department’s special representative for North Korea. Pompeo had said that Biegun was to travel with him to Pyongyang next week.
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#BREAKING: Trump cancels high-level North Korea visit by Pompeo https://t.co/nxs1n6o1bk pic.twitter.com/krCyILKLmT
— The Hill (@thehill) August 24, 2018
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