Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleges in his new memoir that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un once told him that he needed the US military in South Korea in order to protect himself from the dominance of China.
In his new memoir titled "Never Give an Inch, Fighting for the America I Love" the former US Secretary detailed a conversation with the North Korean leader during his first trip to Pyongyang on March 30, 2018, ahead of the US- North Korea summit held three months later.
North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un are not bothered at all by the US military presence in South Korea, Pompeo said, as reported by The Korea Times.
Pompeo said he told Kim Jong-un that the Chinese Communist Party was repeatedly telling the United States that the North Korean leader wants US Forces Korea (USFK) to withdraw from South Korea. In his response, Kim Jong-un said that the Chinese are liars.
In his memoir which was released on Tuesday, Pompeo said Kim talked about his concerns about China, which is considered as North Korea's ally. Pompeo said he told Kim that China believes North Korea wants US forces out of South Korea, "Kim laughed and pounded on the table in sheer joy, exclaiming that the Chinese were liars."
"He (Kim) said that he needed the Americans in South Korea to protect him from the CCP, and that the CCP needs the Americans out so they can treat the peninsula like Tibet and Xinjiang," Pompeo wrote according to The Korea Times.
Pompeo who was sent by then US President Donald Trump to met Kim Jong-un recounts his his candid conversation with the North Korean leader.
According to Washington Post's review of Pompeo's book, the meeting of the former US Secretary began with Kim saying: " 'Mr. Director, I didn't think you'd show up. I know you've been trying to kill me.' Pompeo says he replied, 'Mr. Chairman, I'm still trying to kill you." Smiles all around. The tyrant swore he would give up his nuclear arsenal. Trump believed him. Spoiler alert: Kim was lying."
Pompeo also notes how India and Pakistan were on the verge of nuclear war in 2018 and that US had to intervene to de-escalate the situation. The former US Secretary of State claimed that the world was not aware about the situation between India and Pakistan.
"I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019," Pompeo wrote in his memoir, "Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love."
In 2019, India launched airstrikes in Pakistan after terrorist attack killed 41 Indian paramilitary soldiers in the Kashmir region.
Pompeo, who was in Hanoi for a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, said he was woken up with an call from a senior Indian official.
"He believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he informed me, was contemplating its own escalation," Pompeo wrote in his book. In response, Pompeo in the call said, "I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out."
According to Pompeo, US diplomats convinced India and Pakistan that neither was preparing for the nuclear. In his book, he wrote, "No other nation could have done what we did that night to avoid a horrible outcome."
( With inputs from ANI )
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