MIKE POMPEO/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his conversations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were ‘warm’ and ‘good.’ Pompeo spoke to reporters at the State Department a day after returning from a trip to Pyongyang to negotiate with the North Korean leader and retrieve three Americans held by the regime…Pompeo had met previously with Kim while CIA director, flying secretly to North Korea over the Easter weekend to discuss the possibility of a summit meeting with President Donald Trump and negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program…Pompeo spoke alongside South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, who is in Washington to get a briefing on the top US diplomat’s meetings and to prepare for a May 22 summit meeting between Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Pompeo said that that any agreement with North Korea will have to include a ‘robust verification program’ to ensure that Pyongyang complies, adding that the Trump administration was focused on making sure ‘we didn’t end up where we were before’ in their talks with North Korea.”
-Nicole Gaouette and Ryan Browne, “Pompeo says talks with North Korea’s Kim were ‘warm,'” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 11, 2018 4:16 pm