If North Korea Talks Are Not Fruitful, ‘I Will Respectfully Leave,’ Trump Says

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SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/world/asia/trump-pompeo-north-korea.html

by  MARK LANDLER


President Trump declared on Wednesday that he would scrap a planned summit meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, or even walk out of the session while it was underway, if his diplomatic overture was not heading toward success.

Mr. Trump continued to express optimism — verging on eagerness — about sitting down with the North’s reclusive leader. But as the momentum for a meeting grows in both Washington and East Asia, the president acknowledged that it was a perilous undertaking that could still end in failure.

“If I think that it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we’re not going to go,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, standing alongside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. “If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.”

Mr. Trump’s words reinforced his decision to send the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, on a secret trip to meet Mr. Kim. Mr. Pompeo, nominated by Mr. Trump last month as secretary of state, played advance man for the president in Pyongyang, laying the groundwork for the planned meeting.

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