US, North Korea in nuclear talks
• Pyongyang team to deliver letter from Kim to Trump
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and high-ranking North Korean official Kim Yong Chol will try to settle nuclear disagreements and set up an historic summit between their leaders, and on Thursday held a second day of meetings in New York.
President Donald Trump said he was expecting a delegation from Pyongyang to travel to Washington on Friday to deliver a letter to him from leader Kim Jong Un. “I look forward to seeing what’s in the letter,” Trump said as he left Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Houston.
Asked if a deal was taking shape, he said: “I think it will be very positive ... the meetings have been very positive.”
Trump said he was hopeful his unprecedented summit with Kim, who exchanged violent rhetoric with the US president before they began talking of a summit, would take place on June 12 as originally scheduled but left open the possibility talks could fall through. “I want it to be meaningful,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean it gets all done at one meeting. Maybe you have to have a second or a third. And maybe we’ll have none. But it’s in good hands. That I can tell you.”
Disputes between Washington and Pyongyang led Trump to announce last Thursday that he was cancelling the meeting with Kim due to take place in Singapore, only to say the following day that it could still go ahead.
The days since have seen a flurry of diplomatic efforts to get the summit back on track.
If the North Korean delegation goes to the White House, it would be the first visit there by high-level Pyongyang officials since 2000 when envoy Jo Myong Rok, a vice-marshal, met then president Bill Clinton.
Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol, a close aide of Kim Jong Un and vice-chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s central committee, left a 90-minute private dinner in New York on Wednesday night without providing details about their conversation.
The US has been demanding North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons programme amid reports that it is close to being able to launch a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US.
Pyongyang has long argued that it needed nuclear weapons for its security.
There were reports earlier on Wednesday that South Korean officials were noting “quite significant” differences between the US and North Korea over denuclearisation. The New York meetings follow high-level conversations Pompeo held in North Korea in April and May and are intended to get negotiations between the two longtime adversaries back on track.
RECENT DAYS HAVE SEEN A FLURRY OF DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITY TO GET THE SUMMIT BACK ON TRACK