U.S., S. Korean officials meet to discuss Trump-Kim summit

SEOUL, South Korea — Senior U.S. and South Korean officials met Sunday to discuss a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in South Korea earlier amid reports that he’ll meet North Korean officials soon to work out details for the summit.

Trump told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the meeting is set” with Kim, but he provided no further details about the meeting. The president said there was “a very good chance that we will make a deal.”

With the North under economic penalties and the U.S. unwilling to ease them under the North denuclearizes, Trump said Kim “has a chance to have North Korea be a tremendous economic behemoth.

It has a chance to be one of the great economic countries in the world. He can’t do that with nuclear weapons and he can’t do that on the path they’re on now.”

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Biegun and his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon held consultations about working-level U.S.-North Korea talks ahead of the summit.

South Korean media reported Biegun and his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol will likely meet at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or in the North’s capital of Pyongyang early this week.

Little progress has been made toward ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons since Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore last June.

U.S. officials say sanctions will stay in place until North Korea denuclearizes. when he provided estimates for the next phase of a military mission that has grown in size and length. Critics say it is a political ploy by the White House as President Trump seeks billions to build a border wall.

Shanahan said the additional troops would be sent mainly to install additional wire barriers and provide a large new system of mobile surveillance and monitoring of the border area.