WASHINGTON, The White House has announced that United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet a visiting senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) later this week.
Kim Yong Chol, who is vice-chairman of the DPRK's ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee, is travelling to New York and will meet with Pompeo later this week, White House Spokesperson Sarah Sanders said in a statement Tuesday.
The announcement followed a tweet from US President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning that Kim Yong Chol is "heading now to New York".
Sanders also revealed in the statement that a US delegation, headed by veteran American diplomat Sung Kim, was meeting with DPRK officials at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) sepearating thr two Koreas, with more meetings expected later this week.
Sung Kim, currently serving as the US ambassador to the Philippines, was a former US ambassador to the Republic of Korea (ROK).
Sanders also said that a US pre-advance team, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, was currently in Singapore co-ordinating the logistics of the expected on-off-on summit between Trump and DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un.
John Bolton, Trump's National Security Adviser, has had telephone conversations with his ROK and Japanese counterparts "virtually every day" and these calls have been ongoing over the last couple of weeks, Sanders added.
The latest positive progress for the summit, originally scheduled on June 12 in Singapore, came after Trump cancelled the meeting last Thursday, citing "tremendous anger and open hostility" displayed by Pyongyang recently.
Trump reversed course on Friday, saying both sides wanted the meeting to happen and it could still go ahead after productive talks. He also confirmed on Sunday that a US official team had arrived in the DPRK to talk about the preparation for talks. -- NNN-XINHUA
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK
