Top North Korean aide in Washington

NEW YORK. — Kim Jong Un’s righthand man flew into New York yesterday for talks with President Donald Trump’s top diplomat amid a scramble to organise next month’s historic nuclear summit between the North Korean and US leaders.

Kim Yong Chol, a veteran Pyongyang power player and a member of the young autocrat’s inner circle, arrived on an Air China flight from Beijing, becoming the most senior North Korean official to visit the United States in 18 years.

He was to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who saw Trump before setting off from Washington, for dinner on Wednesday and talks Thursday to finalize planning for a June 12 summit designed to end a nuclear stand-off that once threatened to plunge Korea back into war.

US and North Korean envoys have also been meeting in Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, and an American “pre-advance” team is in Singapore to make logistical arrangements for the rapidly planned meeting.

“So far the readout from these meetings have been positive and we’ll continue to move forward with them,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, confirming the plan is still for the leaders to meet in Singapore on June 12.

But with 13 days to go, the talks between General Kim and Pompeo, the former CIA chief who pioneered the latest round of face-to-face meetings, appeared to confirmed that the process of getting two unpredictable leaders to the table is now on track.

“As the president says, if it happens, we’ll certainly be ready,” Sanders said.

Earlier this month, Trump suddenly but only briefly announced a cancellation of the summit after a North Korea issued a sharp rebuke of what it saw as threatening language for the US side, and the US side warns talks could be postponed if Kim is not serious about disarmament.

“Again, denuclearisation has to be on the table and the focus of the meeting. And the president has to feel like we’re making progress on that front. And the only one that will make that determination will be the president,” Sanders had said Tuesday.

But the summit appears increasingly likely to go ahead, amid a flurry of international diplomatic activity.