North Korea summit: Donald Trump says Kim aide in US for talks

Seoul: US President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that a senior North Korean official is headed to New York for talks as preparations for his historic summit with Kim Jong Un gather pace.

“Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the vice- chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Trump wrote in a tweet, hailing the formation of a “great team” for the talks. General Kim Yong Chol landed at Beijing airport on Tuesday and will journey on to New York the following day after talks with Chinese officials, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. 

US negotiators, headed by Washington's current ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, met North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas on Sunday. The State Department said a separate team of White House officials has headed to Singapore to sort out logistics. Chung Sung-yoon, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Kim Yong Chol will be the most senior North Korean official to step onto US soil since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok met President Bill Clinton in 2000. The general has long been a right-hand man to North Korea’s leader, playing a front-seat role during recent rounds of diplomacy aimed at ending the stalemate on the Korean peninsula. He also accompanied Kim Jong Un on both of his recent trips to China to meet President Xi Jinping, and held talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he travelled to Pyongyang.