People watch a TV news report showing portraits of three Americans, Kim Dong Chul, left, Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song, right, detained in the North Korea at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul on May 3. (Ahn Young-Joon/AP) PYONGYANG, North Korea — If North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons, the country can “have all the opportunities your people so richly deserve,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told senior North Korean officials upon his arrival in Pyongyang Wednesday.
Pompeo is in the North Korean capital to discuss the details for the proposed summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump and to try to secure the release of three American men detained here for more than a year.
“For decades, we have been adversaries,” Pompeo told Kim Yong Chol, a man sanctioned by the United States for his involvement with the North’s nuclear program but who has emerged as one of the regime’s key interlocutors to the outside world.
“Now we are hopeful that we can work together to resolve this conflict, take away threats to the world and make your country have all the opportunities your people so richly deserve,” Pompeo said before lunch at the Koryo Hotel, a large, double-towered building in central Pyongyang.
“There are many challenges along the way. But you have been a great partner in working to make sure our two leaders will have a summit that is successful,” the new secretary of state said.
When Pompeo touched down in Pyongyang shortly before 8 a.m. local time, he was greeted by Kim Yong Chol, a former North Korean intelligence chief, and Ri Su Yong, the influential former foreign minister. Ri is close to Kim Jong Un, having served as ambassador to Switzerland while the young leader attended school there.
Kim Yong Chol, who is in charge of relations with South Korea, and Ri, responsible for international relations, had just returned from the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, where Kim Jong Un held talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping, their second meeting in to China in only 40 days.
Both also attended the inter-Korean summit with South Korean president Moon Jae-in late last month.
On the way to North Korea, Pompeo said he did not know if he would see Kim Jong Un, whom he met several times during a secret trip to Pyongyang over Easter weekend to start preparing for the proposed summit. If it takes place, it will be the first time a sitting American president and a leader of North Korea have met.
Pompeo and Kim Jong Chol met behind closed doors at the Koryo Hotel for about an hour Wednesday morning, before lunch in a 39th floor function complete with poached fish and duck, and red wine.
Kim Yong Chol was in an effusive mood, telling Pompeo and the dozen or so staffers traveling with him that this was a good time to be in Pyongyang because it was spring time and a good atmosphere had been established between North and South. This echoed remarks that both Korean leaders had been making about a new spring arriving on the peninsula.
“So everything is going well in Pyongyang now,” he said, adding that from now on, North Korea would be concentrating all its efforts “into the economic progress of our country.”
“This is not a result of sanctions that have been imposed from outside,” Kim Yong Chol told Pompeo, contradicting the administration’s line that Trump’s “maximum pressure” approach had brought North Korea to the negotiating table.
“I hope the United States also will be happy with our success. I have high expectations the U.S. will play a very big role in establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. Then he toasted Pompeo.
Pompeo stood and said the American delegation was “equally committed to working with you to achieve exactly” that.
The delegation’s arrival in Pyongyang was part of a sudden flurry of diplomacy in northeast Asia related to efforts to engage North Korea.
Kim had met with Xi earlier in the week, following a visit to Pyongyang from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week.
In Tokyo on Wednesday, leaders from China, Japan and South Korea met and stressed their resolve to use talks to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
“We must lead the ongoing momentum toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and achieve peace and stab
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