Shortly after arriving in North Korea following the visit, Mr Pompeo posted a photo on Twitter of himself walking along with Mr Kim, saying: “Had a good trip to #Pyongyang to meet with Chairman Kim. We continue to make progress on agreements made at Singapore Summit. Thanks for hosting me and my team @StateDept.”
The secretary of state began a three-day tour of east Asia on Saturday when he met Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, in Tokyo.
North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary
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This is Mr Pompeo’s fourth trip to North Korea – and his second meeting with Kim Jong-un – and it would have happened sooner but was cancelled on the president’s orders over a lack of progress in denuclearisation talks.
However the president has talked up his administration’s success in bringing North Korea into the diplomatic fold. Mr Trump told the UN last month: “We have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined a short time ago.”
In a sign of the remarkable change in rhetoric in the past year, Mr Abe suggested he could follow the US chief’s lead in meeting with Mr Kim to “break the shell of distrust”.
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