U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet later this week with a North Korean four-star general in New York for talks related to a planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, according to the White House.

Kim Yong Chol, the vice chairman of the powerful Central Committee and North Korea’s former spy chief, departed Beijing on an Air China commercial flight Tuesday for John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that Kim’s visit is a “solid response to my letter, thank you!”

“Kim Yong Chol is the man who whispers in Kim Jong Un’s ear. Not only does he advise him on strategy but he also conveys the leader’s demands. He’ll be coming to New York to negotiate on Kim Jong Un’s behalf. It’s another very strong sign of commitment to this summit,” said Jean Lee, director of the Korea program at the Wilson Center.

 

Lee, former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press, tells VOA tough discussions should be expected “as the U.S. and North Korean sides try to get on the same page regarding what the two leaders will accomplish at this anticipated summit.”

The president sent a letter last week to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un saying their scheduled June 12 summit in Singapore would not happen, blaming what he said was “tremendous anger and open hostility” shown in a statement from Pyongyang. But negotiations between the two countries have continued, including talks at the Korean demilitarized zone.

But since Trump’s letter, “the North Koreans have been engaging,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in a statement Tuesday. “The United States continues to actively prepare for President Trump’s expected summit with leader Kim in Singapore.”

Sanders said a U.S. delegation is meeting with a North Korean delegation in the demilitarized zone, led by Sung Kim, who is the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and former envoy to South Korea. Also present are Allison Hooker, Korea director on the National Security Council and Randy Schriver, who is the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.

“They plan to have additional meetings this week” at Panmunjom, according to Sanders.

Separately, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin is leading a pre-advance team in Singapore “coordinating the logistics of the expected summit,” said Sanders.

It has also been announced here that Trump is to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House on June 7.

In a phone call Monday, Trump and Abe “affirmed the shared imperative of achieving the complete and permanent dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missile programs,” according to a White House statement.

Behind the scenes, Japanese officials have been expressing anxiety about the Trump-Kim summit. They worry Japanese interests could be sidelined at the summit, especially what to do about North Korea’s short and medium-range missile able to reach Japan and the fate of Japanese abducted over decades by North Korean agents.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in could also be going to Singapore next month for a three-way summit with his U.S. and North Korean counterparts, a government official in Seoul said Monday.

After a surprise meeting Saturday between Kim and Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president said the North Korean leader is still committed to the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. has called for “complete, verifiable and irreversible” dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. North Korea has rejected unilateral disarmament and called for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula without defining what that entails.

The North Koreans, after expressing initial enthusiasm about diplomacy with the United States earlier this month, did not show up for a preparatory meeting in Singapore.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui also was quoted by the country’s official news agency threatening to use nuclear force and she referred to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy.”

That angered Trump who then wrote a letter to Kim Jong Un calling off their summit.

 

North Korean state media quickly replied with a conciliatory statement, reporting Kim’s “fixed will” that his summit with Trump should go ahead.

Ira Mellman and Victor Beattie contributed to this report
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