U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he held “substantive talks” Thursday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s top deputy in New York about the potential summit between Kim and President Donald Trump.
Pompeo tweeted after holding discussions in an apartment near U.N. headquarters with a North Korean delegation led by Kim Yong Chol, the vice chairman of the powerful Central Committee and North Korea’s former spy chief.
Earlier, President Trump said talks between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol had been going well and he hoped to hold a summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore on the originally scheduled date of June 12. The president said he expects the North Korean delegation to travel to Washington Friday to deliver a letter to him from Kim Jong Un. “I look forward to seeing what’s in the letter,” Trump said Thursday.
Trump later told Reuters news agency it may take more than one meeting with Kim Jong Un to seal denuclearization deal with North Korea and that he would like Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program as quickly as possible under any agreement.
Kim Yong Chol is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the United States in 18 years.
The two officials met again Thursday morning over breakfast, each with a small group of aides.
They are expected to hold two short working sessions, after which the State Department has said Secretary Pompeo will speak to reporters.
Discussions between the two sides also are taking place in Panmunjom and Singapore.
But the White House says talks of the “total denuclearization of the peninsula” do not extend to U.S. weapons systems — a defense umbrella covering South Korea which includes nuclear-armed submarines and strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs not based on the peninsula.
North Korea is estimated to have more than a dozen nuclear weapons.
Kim Yong Chol is the vice chairman of the powerful Central Committee and North Korea’s former spy chief. He and Pompeo have already met twice in Pyongyang.
An advance team, led by Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, has held meetings with the North Korean team in Singapore this week.
“We also have reports back from the DMZ,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday. “The U.S. delegation, led by Ambassador Sung Kim, met with North Korean officials earlier today, as well. And their talks will continue. So far, the readout from these meetings has been positive, and we’ll continue to move forward in them.”
Trump sent a letter last week to Kim Jong Un, calling off the June 12 summit. He blamed what he calls “tremendous anger and open hostility” shown in a statement from Pyongyang. The U.S. president reversed his stance following a subsequent quick and conciliatory statement from North Korea expressing Kim’s “fixed will” for his meeting with Trump to occur.
“North Korea remains our most imminent threat,” Navy Admiral Harry Harris, the outgoing U.S. Pacific Command commander, said in Hawaii Wednesday. “A nuclear-capable North Korea with missiles that can reach the United States is unacceptable.”