CIA director Mike Pompeo made a secret visit to North Korea around March 31-April 1 and met with the country’s leader Kim Jong-un, a senior U.S. official has confirmed. The trip was first reported by the Washington Post, citing two people with direct knowledge of the trip.

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that his administration was in direct talks with Pyongyang at "extremely high levels" to try to set up a summit between him and the North Korean leader, during a photo opportunity with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the two opened U.S.-Japan talks at the President's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump said U.S. officials were looking at five different locations for a late-May or early-June meeting with Kim. "And I really believe this allows good will, that good things are happening.” "We'll see what happens… because ultimately it's the end result that counts, not the fact that we're thinking about having a meeting, or having a meeting," Trump said.

Mike Pompeo is also Donald Trump’s choice as U.S. Secretary of State and is in the middle of the nomination process. Pompeo was selected by Trump after he fired his earlier Secretary of State Rex Tillerson but specifically for his views that align with Trump’s own. Pompeo’s trip has made him the most senior U.S. official to visit North Korea since former intelligence chief James Clapper in 2014.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders confirmed today, “The president said the administration has had talks at the highest levels and added that they were not with him directly.” Asked about Pompeo, she said, “The administration does not comment on the CIA director’s travel.”

As diplomatic parley between the U.S. and North Korea as well as Seoul and Pyongyang proceed at an unprecedented pace, neighbours like Japan are voicing their concerns. “For the North Korean issue, I’d like to underscore the importance of achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation, as well as the abandonment of missile programs of North Korea,” Shinzo Abe told Trump. Abe also obtained an agreement from Trump to bring up the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, a highly emotive issue for the Japanese.

The talks between Washington and Pyongyang are being looked at skeptically across the world as 2017 saw rhetoric reach dangerous levels between Trump and Kim Jong-un and the sudden turn around beggars belief.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 18, 2018 11:35 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).