WASHINGTON — The United States is assuring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un his ouster is not part of the agenda for the summit next month between Kim and President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday. ‘‘We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure,’’ Pompeo said on ‘‘Fox News Sunday.’’
The promise not to invade or otherwise seek Kim’s overthrow would be incentive for him to give up his nuclear weapons.
‘‘This has been a tradeoff that has been pending for 25 years,’’ Pompeo said, referring to the long history of failed negotiations with Pyongyang as well as the North Korean narrative that the United States is a mortal threat.
Trump is scheduled to meet Kim in Singapore on June 12 for an unprecedented summit.
On CBS’s ‘‘Face The Nation,’’ Pompeo said he had already provided assurance to Kim. ‘‘I have told him that what President Trump wants is to see the North Korean regime get rid of its nuclear weapons program, completely and in totality, and in exchange for that we are prepared to ensure that the North Korean people get the opportunity that they so richly deserve.’’
‘‘No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible, that the Americans would actually do this, would lead to the place where America was no longer held at risk by the North Korean regime,’’ he said.
The US position is not new — Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson, had stressed the United States would not seek Kim’s ouster — but it carries additional weight now that Trump and Kim are to be face to face. It is also significant because of past statements by Pompeo and new national security adviser John Bolton about potential regime change in North Korea.
Last year, Pompeo said the most dangerous element of the North Korea nuclear weapons problem ‘‘is the character who holds the control’’ over the weapons. ‘‘So, from the administration’s perspective, the most important thing we can do is separate those two, right?’’ Pompeo, CIA director at the time, said at the Aspen Security Forum. However, he told the Senate last month that he does not support regime change.
Bolton, on CNN’s ‘‘State of the Union,’’ said his own past advocacy for regime change in North Korea and in Iran were the views of ‘‘a free agent’’ and are irrelevant to his current job.
‘‘I’m the national security adviser to the president,’’ but Trump calls the shots, he said. As recently as December, Bolton had said he favored ‘‘regime elimination’’ in North Korea.
‘‘My proposal would be: Eliminate the regime by reunifying the peninsula under South Korean control,’’ Bolton had said on Fox News, where he was a frequent commentator.
Bolton said if Trump can negotiate an agreement with Kim, it might be submitted to the Senate as a treaty as the next step in the ratification process.
‘‘It’s entirely possible we could,’’ Bolton said, adding that to do so would address ‘‘one of the criticisms of the Iran deal.’’
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was concluded as a compact among nations but not submitted to the Senate for ratification by the Obama administration. Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement last week.
