The Washington Times,  April 17, 2018 – CIA Director Mike Pompeo met secretly with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in recent weeks to set up a meeting between Mr. Kim and President Trump, two administration officials said Tuesday.

Mr. Pompeo, now the president’s nominee for Secretary of State, traveled to North Korea over Easter weekend to talk to the reclusive communist leader, the Associated Press confirmed.

Disclosure of the top-secret meeting came after Mr. Trump said the U.S. and North Korea already have had direct talks at “extremely high levels” ahead of his planned summit with Mr. Kim this summer, and that five locations are under consideration.

The U.S. has “started talking to North Korea directly,” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “We have had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels with North Korea.”

The president also said he has given South Korea his “blessing” to negotiate a historic peace deal with North Korea to end formally the war that started in 1950. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is slated to meet with Mr. Kim for talks on April 27.

“The war has never ended. If we can do something even before the meeting, the big planned meeting, that would be fine,” Mr. Trump said. “But we’re dealing very closely with South Korea. They do have my blessing to discuss the end to the war.”