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Report: North Korea ‘Secret Letter’ Prompted Cancellation of Pompeo’s Pyongyang Trip

Pompeo received the letter on Friday and showed it to the White House. Trump announced the trip’s cancellation the same day.

President Donald Trump canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang last week reportedly after Pompeo received a “secret letter” from North Korea that indicated the “visit was not likely to succeed.” The Washington Post reports that the letter—from vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Kim Yong Chol—got to Pompeo on Friday morning, and he showed it to the White House. While the contents of the letter are not clear, it reportedly caused both Trump and Pompeo to call off the trip. The same day, Trump took to Twitter to publicly announce the cancellation of the trip, saying the U.S. was “not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The trip, which was originally slated for this week, was supposed to formally introduce newly appointed special envoy Stephen Biegun to his counterparts in North Korea.