Trump 'will walk out' if North Korea talks not fruitful
US President Donald Trump says that
if his planned talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are not
fruitful he will "walk out".
At a joint news conference, he and
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said maximum pressure must be maintained on North
Korea over nuclear disarmament.
Mr Abe is at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for talks.
Earlier, Mr Trump confirmed that CIA Director Mike Pompeo had made a secret trip to North Korea to meet Mr Kim.
He
said Mr Pompeo had forged a "good relationship" with Mr Kim - whom the
US president was last year calling "little rocket man" - and that the
meeting had gone "very smoothly".
The visit marked the highest-level contact between the US and North Korea since 2000.
Mr Trump is expected to hold a summit with Mr Kim by June. Details, including a location, are still being worked out.
What was said about the summit?
President
Trump said at the joint news conference that if he did not think the
meeting would be successful he would not go, and if the meeting went
ahead but was not productive, he would walk out.
"Our campaign of maximum pressure will continue until North Korea denuclearises," he added.
What else was discussed?
On trade, the leaders agreed to start talks on "free, fair and and reciprocal trade deals".
Mr
Trump said the US remained opposed to rejoining the Trans Pacific
Partnership unless Japan and other parties to the trade pact offered "a
deal that I can't refuse".
The US president did not exempt Japan from punitive steel and aluminium tariffs, as he has done for other US allies.
Turning
to North Korea, Mr Abe said he had urged President Trump to help bring
about the release of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the
1970s and 1980s.
North Korea has admitted to abducting 13 Japanese
citizens in order to use them to train its spies in Japanese customs.
Japan believes the figure is much higher. The issue has soured relations
between the two countries for decades.
Three US citizens are also being held in North Korea.
Mr Trump said the US would "work very hard" to try to bring the Japanese abductees home.
"We are likewise fighting very diligently to get the three American citizens back," Mr Trump added.
"I think there's a good chance of doing it. We're having very good dialogue."
What do we know about Mike Pompeo's meeting?
The secret trip took place after Mr Pompeo was nominated by President Trump to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.
No details are known about the talks other than that they were to prepare for the forthcoming Trump-Kim summit.
Mr Pompeo is expected to be confirmed as the top US diplomat by the
Republican-controlled Senate in the coming weeks, although Democratic
opposition to the conservative's candidacy is strong.
Senator
Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee,
said he did not think Mr Pompeo's "past sentiments" reflected American
values.
The hawkish CIA chief's opposition to same-sex marriage
has come under scrutiny and he has also made controversial remarks about
Islam.
When and where might a Trump-Kim summit take place?
Mr
Trump surprised the international community last month by accepting
Pyongyang's suggestion for direct talks. It would be unprecedented for a
sitting US president to meet a North Korean leader.
He has said
the summit will take place either in early June or "a little before
that" and that several sites are under consideration.
Experts have speculated that a location for talks could be the
Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea, another Asian country,
or a neutral European country.
North Korea has been isolated for
decades because of its human rights abuses and pursuit of nuclear
weapons, in defiance of international laws and UN sanctions.
It has carried out six nuclear tests, and has missiles that it says could reach the US.
But
South Korea's hosting of the Winter Olympics in February gave an
unexpected window for diplomacy, and in the weeks since there have been a
flurry of visits to the North from China, South Korea and now the US.
BBC
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