Earlier this month before the start of the Winter Olympics, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to have a secret meeting with North Korean officials, including Kim Jong Un’s sister, which was confirmed by Pence’s office on Tuesday. North Korea abruptly pulled out of the meeting before it could happen.
The meeting was set to take place at the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea’s equivalent to the White House, a location intended to represent neutral ground. Pence’s office said they believed the abrupt cancellation was a sign that U.S. attempts to exert pressure on the regime were working. “North Korea dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics,” said Nick Ayers, Pence’s chief of staff.
Pence announced the United States’ plan to implement new sanctions against the regime during his stop in Japan, and repeatedly mentioned that the trip to the Olympics was aimed at preventing the country from “hijacking” the event. Pence also invited Fred Warmbier, the father of American tourist Otto Warmbier, to the opening ceremony. Otto Warmbier was detained in North Korea for more than a year and was returned to the US in a coma, suffering from brain damage, last June. He died shortly afterward.
At the opening ceremony, Pence and his wife were seated just a few feet away from Kim Yo Jong and Kim Yong Nam the day before the meeting was supposed to take place. The U.S. State Department said that Pence had been ready to “drive home the necessity of North Korea abandoning its illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs” at the meeting. Another official, Heather Nauert said, “We regret [North Korea’s] failure to seize this opportunity. We will not apologize for American values, for calling attention to human rights abuses, or for mourning a young Americans unjust death.”
Pence chose to actively ignore Kim Yo Jong because he “didn’t believe it was proper for the United States of America to give any countenance of attention in that form to someone who’s not merely the sister of the dictator but is the leader of the propaganda effort” Pence stated after returning to the US after the opening ceremony.
Ayers went on to say, “North Korea would have strongly preferred the vice president not use the world stage to call attention to those absolute facts or to display our strong alliance with those committed to the maximum-pressure campaign. But as we’ve said from day one about the trip: This administration will stand in the way of Kim’s desire to whitewash their murderous regime with nice photo ops at the Olympics, perhaps that’s why they walked away from the meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down.” Despite North Korea’s abrupt cancellation, Pence stated that the United States would be willing to talk to the North Koreans even without Pyongyang showing signs of disengagement from its nuclear and missile development program, signaling a major change in US policy in dealing with the regime.
