Donald Trump hails 'good relationship' following CIA Chief's meeting with North Korean leader

Mike Pompeo's highly unusual talks took place "last week", Mr Trump tweeted, and "went smoothly", with details about the presidential meeting within the next few months "being worked out now".

"Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!", Mr Trump wrote while at his Florida estate, where he was hosting Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018

Mr Trump had disclosed on Tuesday that the US and North Korea were holding direct talks at "extremely high levels" in preparation for a possible summit.

He said five locations were under consideration for the meeting, which could take place by early June.

The Washington Post, which first reported the meeting, said it took place over Easter weekend, just over two weeks ago, shortly after Mr Pompeo was nominated to become secretary of state.

Mr Kim's offer for a summit was initially conveyed to Mr Trump by South Korea last month, and the president shocked many by accepting it.

FOX NEWS ALERT: Surprise sitdown! CIA Dir and Secy of State nominee Mike Pompeo reportedly met with Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend pic.twitter.com/PeUcS0PDrM

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 18, 2018

US officials indicated over the past two weeks that North Korea's government had communicated directly with Washington that it was ready to discuss its nuclear weapons programme.

It would be the first-ever summit between the US and North Korea during more than six decades of hostility since the Korean War.

North Korea's nuclear weapons and its capability to deliver them by ballistic missile pose a growing threat to the US mainland.

The US and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, complicating the arrangements for contacts between the two governments.

It is not unprecedented for US intelligence officials to serve as a conduit for communication with Pyongyang.

In 2014, the then-director of US national intelligence, James Clapper, secretly visited North Korea to bring back two American detainees.

China, North Korea's closest ally, said it welcomes direct contact and talks between the US and North Korea after news emerged of Mr Pompeo's meeting with Mr Kim.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a briefing that Beijing hopes the two sides will work on a political resolution of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and set up a peace mechanism.

The Koreas are technically still in a state of war after fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.

At a Senate hearing last week on his nomination, Mr Pompeo played down expectations for a breakthrough deal on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme at the planned summit, but said it could lay the groundwork for a comprehensive agreement on denuclearisation.

"I'm optimistic that the United States government can set the conditions for that appropriately so that the president and the North Korean leader can have that conversation and will set us down the course of achieving a diplomatic outcome that America and the world so desperately need," Mr Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After a year of escalating tensions, when North Korea conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests that drew world condemnation, Mr Kim has changed tack to international outreach.

The young leader met China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing in late March, Mr Kim's first trip abroad since taking power six years ago.

He is set to meet South Korean president Moon Jae-in in the demilitarised zone between the rival Koreas on April 27.

- PA & Digital Desk