US officials try to salvage summit.
SEOUL >> A team of U.S. officials crossed into North Korea on Sunday for talks to prepare for a summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, as both sides press ahead with arrangements despite the question marks hanging over the meeting.
Sung Kim, a former U.S. 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 program.
After Saturday’s surprise interKorean talks, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Kim was still committed to the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. But Moon declined to define “complete denuclearization,” suggesting that there are still fundamental gaps on the key issue bedeviling preparations.
Crossing the line that separates the two Koreas, Sung Kim met with Choe Son Hui, the North Korean vice foreign minister, who said last week that Pyongyang was “reconsidering” the talks. The two officials know each other well — both were part of their respective delegations that negotiated the 2005 denuclearization agreement through the six-party framework.
The meetings were trumpeted by Trump later Sunday afternoon, 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 are expected to continue Monday and Tuesday.
In Washington, lawmakers and former U.S. intelligence officials expressed general support Sunday for proceeding with the summit, but many reacted skeptically to North Korea’s suggestion that it is open to discussing denuclearization.
“They’re playing a game,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Kim Jong Un - these nuclear weapons are something he’s psychologically attached to. They are what give him his prestige and importance . . . . I’d love to see them denuclearize. I just, I’m not very optimistic about that.”