THIS IS OUR NEW ‘REALITY’
NoKo honcho arrives in NY
The highest-ranking North Korean emissary to meet with an American official in the United States in 18 years arrived in New York City Wednesday for a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as a landmark summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un hung in the balance.
Kim Yong-chol, a top aide to Kim and the regime’s former spy chief, arrived with a five-member entourage and went to the Millenium Hilton hotel across from the United Nations under tight security.
Pompeo, too, arrived in New York for a working dinner with Kim Yong-chol to try to salvage the June 12 Singapore summit, which Trump canceled last week.
Pompeo will also have a “full day of meetings” Thursday before returning to Washington, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
“The conversation is going to be focused on denuclearization of the peninsula,” Sanders said. “That’s what these ongoing con- versations taking place now will be centered on, as well as the summit that will take place in Singapore.”
The State Department did not release any details of Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Yong-chol, but a federal source said it would be at the UN or a UN facility.
North Korea has a mission in New York for its UN delegation, but it has no other diplomatic properties in the United States.
Kim Yong-chol, the vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling party, could remain in touch with Pyongyang through the mission while in New York.
It marks the third meeting between Pompeo, who headed the CIA before becoming secretary of state, and Kim Yong-chol, who helped coordinate Pompeo’s two meetings in Pyongyang with the Korean dictator in April and earlier this month.
Kim Yong-chol is the most senior North Korean emissary to meet with a top American official in the US since Vice Chairman Jo Myong-rok’s 2000 White House visit with then-President Bill Clinton.