New US push for Trump-Kim talks

Officials travel to North Korea as plans gain momentum

An official meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un looked to be back on track yesterday as a team of US officials travelled to North Korea for talks to prepare for the summit as both sides press ahead with arrangements despite the question marks hanging over the meeting.

Trump, the US President, on Friday cancelled the June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim. But a flurry of activity appears to have gone a long way to salvaging the plan.

Sung Kim, a former US ambassador to South Korea and former nuclear negotiator with the North, has been called in from his post as envoy to the Philippines to lead the preparations, according to a person familiar with the arrangements.

The talks are focused on what would be the substance of a potential summit between Trump and Kim — the issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.

After surprise inter-Korean talks on Sunday between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In, Moon said Kim was still committed to the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula.

But Moon declined to define “complete denuclearisation”, suggesting that there are still fundamental gaps on the key issue.

Crossing the line that separates the two Koreas, Sung Kim met with Choe Son Hui, the North Korean ViceForeign Minister, who said last week that Pyongyang was “reconsidering” the talks.

The meetings were trumpeted by Trump yesterday, when he tweeted, “Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself. I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial Nation one day. Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this. It will happen!”

The talks were expected to continue today and tomorrow at Tongilgak, or

“Unification House”, the building in the northern part of the demilitarised zone where Kim Jong Un met Moon on Sunday in a bid to salvage the summit.

The South Korean President, who is playing something of a mediator role in the talks, was optimistic afterward. “We two leaders agreed the June 12 North Korea-US summit must be successfully held,” he said.

Sung Kim was joined by Allison Hooker, the Korea specialist on the National Security Council, and an official from the Defence Department. Sung Kim, who was born in South Korea and was a key diplomat in the 2005 six-party talks, was ambassador to South Korea from 2011 to 2014, then became special representative for North Korea policy.