Top North Korean heads to US; Russian FM to visit Pyongyang
Asenior figure in the North Korea was en route to the US on Wednesday, and Russia’s top diplomat was preparing to visit Pyongyang as diplomatic preparations for a historic nuclear summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un gathered pace.
General Kim Yong-chol, righthand man to the North Korean leader, will meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York, officials said, AFP reported.
Trump confirmed the general was on his way in a tweet and boasted that Washington would have a “great team” for the talks aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.
The US president still hopes the summit will take place on June 12 in Singapore.
“Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Yong-chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Trump wrote.
Moscow said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to North Korea today to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Last month the North’s foreign minister Ri Yong-ho held rare talks with Lavrov in Moscow, part of a quickening effort to improve strained ties with global powers.
Russia was a member of six-nation talks held between 2003-8 aimed at persuading the North to scrap its nuclear program.
Japan is also keenly watching summit preparations. Trump will meet its 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 United States continues to actively prepare for President Trump’s expected summit with leader Kim in Singapore.”
Kim Yong-chol was at Beijing airport Wednesday for his flight to New York. He used the restricted VIP entrance, according to AFP journalists.
Pompeo’s spokeswoman said it would be the third meeting between Pompeo and Kim.
“We’re still finalizing exactly what these meetings will look like,” she said.
The trip is part of a flurry of diplomacy before the on-again, off-again summit.
On Sunday US negotiators, headed by Washington’s ambassador to the Philippines Sung-kim, began meeting North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas.
“They plan to have additional meetings this week,” Sanders said.
Washington wants North Korea to quickly give up all its nuclear weapons in a verifiable way in return for sanctions and economic relief.
But analysts say North Korea will be unwilling to cede its nuclear deterrent unless it is given security guarantees that the US will not try to topple the state.