US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo resumed talks in New York on Thursday with a top North Korean official as the pair work to salvage next month’s nuclear summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, an AFP journalist on the scene said.
Kim Yong Chol, considered the North Korean leader’s right-hand man, is the most senior official from Pyongyang to visit the United States in 18 years. He and Pompeo shook hands shortly after 9 am and began their talks over breakfast, with four people on each side.
The United States has been demanding that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program amid reports that it is close to being able to launch a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States. Pyongyang has long argued that it needed nuclear weapons for its security.
There were reports earlier on Wednesday that South Korean officials were noting “quite significant” differences between the United States and North Korea over denuclearisation. The New York meetings follow high-level conversations Pompeo held in North Korea in April and earlier in May and are intended to get negotiations between the two long-time adversaries back on track.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been scheduled to hold an unprecedented summit in Singapore on June 12. Disputes between Washington and Pyongyang led Trump to cancel the meeting, only to see a renewal of diplomatic efforts in recent days. Kim Yong Chol, a close aide of Kim Jong Un and vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, is the most senior North Korean official to meet top US officials for talks in the US in nearly two decades.
In return for giving up its nuclear weapons, Washington could potentially loosen sanctions on Pyongyang, leading to possible food and other aid to impoverished North Korea and improved ties with South Korea.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he was expecting to receive a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as the two sides scramble to revive a summit previously set for next month between the two leaders. “I look forward to seeing what’s in the letter. They will probably be coming to Washington DC on Friday to deliver the letter so I look forward to that,” Trump said before heading to Texas for the day.