White House national security adviser John Bolton will reportedly attend President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“The national security adviser is going. He’s going to Singapore. He’s going to be a part of those talks,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters Wednesday, dismissing rumors that Bolton had been sidelined after he infuriated the North Koreans.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will be taking the lead on negotiations, will also be in attendance at the summit, The Hill reported.
The Trump administration envisioned the “Libya model” for North Korean denuclearization, Bolton told Fox News in April. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was violently overthrown and executed after he abandoned his nuclear program, and North Korea has long cited Libya’s tragic fate as justification for its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons. (RELATED: Bolton: US Expects North Korean Denuclearization To Go Down The Way It Did In Libya)
Trump later made clear that the Libya model was not under consideration, but not before Pyongyang expressed its dissatisfaction.
In response to his statements, North Korea slammed Bolton in a series of critical statements that also bashed other Trump administration officials, although Bolton was the primary target. “We shed light on the quality of Bolton already in the past, and we do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him,” the North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement. (RELATED: Why Is North Korea Railing Against John Bolton? They Have A Really Rough History)
After North Korea lashed out at the U.S., the president decided to cancel his summit with Kim, but the meeting was salvaged after a week characterized by a flurry of diplomatic activity. Trump announced that the summit was back on after a rare meeting with Kim’s right-hand man Kim Yong Chol at the White House, a meeting at which Bolton was not present.
Rumors have since circulated that there is a rift between Bolton and Pompeo, who is said to have told the president that inviting Bolton to participate in relevant talks would be “counterproductive,” CNN reported Monday.
The White House has denied the existence of tensions between these senior administration officials. “Any rumor of a confrontation between Ambassador Bolton and Secretary Pompeo is categorically false,” a spokesman for the National Security Council told reporters.
The state of the relationship between Bolton and Pompeo is unclear, but Bolton is apparently still involved in efforts to diplomatically engage North Korea.
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