SECRET PYONG POWWOWS
US, NK reps plan Don-Kim summit
US officials are in direct negotiations with representatives of North Korea for the first time ahead of an anticipated summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, a report said on Saturday.
American and North Korean officials have secretly spoken and have met in a third country to settle on the summit’s location, administration officials told CNN.
Kim is pushing for the two sides to get together in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. The American negotiators want a neutral site, with Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, a top contender.
Kim’s offer to meet with Trump, which a South Korean envoy conveyed last month, has not been publicly confirmed by the regime. But the dictator has affirmed his willingness to put the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — a long-sought goal for South Korea and the US — on the table.
The prospective summit, which would be an historic first, would likely take place in late May or June, the officials said.
Trump is set to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in late April. The North Korea crisis is at the top of their agenda.
Japan has been on heightened alert since Kim sent a pair of ballistic missiles flying over Hok- kaido, the nation’s second-largest island, last August and September.
The nation activated its first marine military unit since the end of World War II on Saturday.
Representatives of the two Koreas held talks Saturday on setting up a telephone hot line between their leaders ahead of an April 27 meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Diplomats met at a border village as part of the planning for that event, which will be only the third summit between the Koreas since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Those talks are expected to be a significant step toward resolving the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program.
Since the United States and North Korea have no formal diplomatic ties, organizing the upcoming summit has been a delicate business.
US State Department officials have used a back channel through Pyongyang’s mission to the United Nations to conduct some of the preliminary negotiations.
Former UN Ambassador John Bolton, who starts work as Trump’s national security adviser on Monday, is expected to take a major role in the planning effort.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who is also Trump’s secretary of state nominee, will likely meet with the head of North Korea’s intelligence agency in the final run-up to the Trump-Kim summit.