Amid US talks push, Russia’s Lavrov to visit North Korea
TRUMP VOWS TO SEND ‘GREAT TEAM’ FOR TALKS AIMED AT RESOLVING NUCLEAR STAND-OFF
Asenior figure in the North Korean regime was en route to the US yesterday, 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, right-hand man to the North Korean leader, would meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York, officials said.
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 stand-off.
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 Young [sic] Chol, the Vice-Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Trump wrote.
Rare talks
Moscow said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to North Korea today to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
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 programme.
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 journalists.
Pompeo’s spokeswoman said it would be the third meeting between Pompeo — who opened contacts with the isolated Pyongyang regime when he was still CIA director — and Kim.
“We’re still finalising 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.
Trump briefly scrapped the talks last week, citing “open hostility” from the North, but since then both sides have dialled down the rhetoric and the process appears to be back on track.
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.
Kim Yong-chol will be the most senior North Korean on US soil since Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok met then-president Bill Clinton in 2000.
The general has played a front-seat role during recent rounds of diplomacy aimed at ending the nuclear stalemate on the Korean peninsula.
He sat next to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is also a White House aide, during February’s closing ceremony for the Winter Olympics in South Korea, an event that was seen as a turning point in the nuclear crisis.
The United States continues to actively prepare for President Trump’s expected summit with leader Kim in Singapore.”
Sarah Sanders | Trump spokeswoman