Top N. Korean general coming to New York for talks: Trump

◗ Donald Trump will meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Washington on June 7

Washington, May 29: A senior North Korean official was bound for New York for high- level talks with US officials on Tuesday as preparations for a historic nuclear summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un gathered pace.

General Kim Yong Chol, vice- chairman of the central committee of the Workers’ Party and right hand man to Kim, will meet US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in New York “later this week,” the White House said.

Mr Trump confirmed the general was on his way in a tweet and boasted that Washington would have a “great team” for the talks on resolving the old foes’ nuclear stand- off, which he still hopes will take place on June 12 in Singapore.

“Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the vice- chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Trump wrote.

Mr Trump will also meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Washington on June 7, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. “Since the President’s May 24 letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the North Koreans have been engaging,” she said.

The trip is part of a flurry of diplomacy before the on- again, offagain summit.

Seoul, May 29: US President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that a senior North Korean official is headed to New York for talks as preparations for his historic summit with Kim Jong Un gather pace.

“Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the vicechairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Trump wrote in a tweet, hailing the formation of a “great team” for the talks. General Kim Yong Chol landed at Beijing airport on Tuesday and will journey on to New York the following day after talks with Chinese officials, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

US negotiators, headed by Washington's current ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, met North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas on Sunday. The State Department said a separate team of White House officials has headed to Singapore to sort out logistics. Chung Sungyoon, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Kim Yong Chol will be the most senior North Korean official to step onto US soil since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok met President Bill Clinton in 2000. The general has long been a righthand man to North Korea’s leader, playing a front- seat role during recent rounds of diplomacy aimed at ending the stalemate on the Korean peninsula. He also accompanied Kim Jong Un on both of his recent trips to China to meet President Xi Jinping, and held talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he travelled to Pyongyang. Washington, May 29: US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on Tuesday that it is “imperative” to completely dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programme, the White House said.

The US and Japanese leaders will meet ahead of a much anticipated summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Japan, which has by far the hardest line compared to neighbours China and South Korea, has been left uneasy by the pace of events, and by what it sees as an unwarranted softening toward an untrustworthy Pyongyang. Abe and Trump spoke by telephone a day after US and North Korean officials met at a border truce village.

During the call, the duo “discussed recent developments in North Korea and confirmed they would meet again to continue close coordination in advance of the expected meeting between the US and North Korea,” the White House said.