Fears nuke deal could blow up

A U.S. delegation has met with North Korean officials amid worries that the landmark summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un will not lead to the end of the nuclear crisis.

The meeting in the demilitarized zone Sunday appears to be the first time that Americans and North Koreans have sat down face-to-face since that summit in Singapore.

U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, who was the former emissary to South Korea and led talks before the meeting, was head of the U.S. side.

The State Department told the Daily News the delegation took the “next steps on the implementation of President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un’s joint declaration.”

That summit included a promise for nebulous U.S. security guarantees in exchange for “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula that had been the center of international attention as the Kim regime built a missile system capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the East Coast of the U.S.

It is unclear exactly what steps were discussed at Sunday’s meeting, though national security adviser John Bolton said the same day that the administration has a plan to dismantle the North Korean weapons of mass destruction system within a year.

The White House announced Monday that Secretary of State Pompeo would be traveling to North Korea later this week.

Experts have said that it would be impossible to verify the destruction of the infrastructure, as other reports have shown that while a nuclear test site was blown up in front of international journalists, other facilities and fears of bad faith remain.