Mar 12, 2018
CIA director Mike Pompeo has defended Donald Trump’s decision to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying the president understands the risks.
Mr Trump “isn’t doing this for theatre, he is going there to solve a problem,” the spy chief told Fox News Sunday.
The president has said the yet-to-be-arranged summit could produce the “greatest deal for the world”.
But critics have warned that if the talks go poorly, the two nations will be in a worse position than before.
Such a summit, which Pyongyang has long wanted, has previously been seen as possible only after major concessions from the North Koreans.
But Mr Trump reportedly accepted the offer on the spot when it was relayed by South Korean envoys on Thursday, taking his own administration by surprise.
North Korea has said several times in the past that it would consider giving up its nuclear weapons under the right conditions.
But attempts to negotiate aid-for-disarmament deals have failed repeatedly since 2003, when the North pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Mr Pompeo told CBS the administration had its eyes “wide open” to the challenge of dealing with North Korea.
