Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, on Wednesday called North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un a “dictator” but backed a “broader” approach to ease tensions.
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Trump in his last term took the unusual step of meeting with Kim three times. He and his then secretary of state Mike Pompeo refrained from critical language on Kim, with Trump saying the two “fell in love”.
Rubio, a senator and former political rival of Trump turned supporter, acknowledged he was sceptical of the then president’s overtures to Kim but said “at least it calmed the situation quite a bit”.
“I think there has to be an appetite for a very serious look at broader North Korean policies,” Rubio said at his Senate confirmation hearing.
He called for efforts to prevent a war by North Korea with US allies South Korea and Japan and to see “what can we do to prevent a crisis without encouraging other nation-states to pursue their own nuclear weapons programmes”.
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But he acknowledged that Trump’s diplomacy did not produce any lasting agreement to end North Korea’s nuclear programme.