Trump called off the face-to-face talks last Thursday but said over the weekend he hoped they would still take place. The White House said Tuesday morning that the summit was likely to happen.
The White House says it is ‘actively’ preparing for President Trump’s ‘expected summit’ with Kim Jong-un on June 12 in Singapore.
Trump called off the face-to-face talks last Thursday but said over the weekend he hoped they would still take place on the original date.
This morning he thanked North Korea for the ‘solid’ response to his letter that threw the planned, upcoming summit into turmoil, as negotiators arrived in New York to continue talks.
Trump praised North Korea’s chief negotiator by name and noted that meetings are ongoing after Kim’s right-hand man was spotted in Beijing en route to New York.
‘We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. 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!’ the president wrote.
Kim is the vice chairman of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party and former head of his nation’s spy agency. The White House confirmed in a statement this morning that he’d be meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday in New York.
Kim is the most senior official from the hermetic nation to visit the U. S. since 2000, CNN reported.
The high-level emissary is close to Kim Jong-un and was seated next to the strongman at a summit last month.
He came under U. S. sanctions in 2015, which would require a special waiver for him to come to Washington. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper identified him as having approved the 2014 Sony hack. He is also thought to be behind North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan in 2010.
The White House said Tuesday that not only is Kim coming to New York, a U. S. delegation that was meeting with their North Korean counterparts in the Demiliterized Zone between North and South Korea.
The officials were: Sung Kim, the U. S. Ambassador to the Philippines, Allison Hooker, the director for Korea for the national security council and Randy Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs at the Department of Defense.
White House Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and an advance team were also in Singapore on Tuesday ‘coordinating the logistics of the expected summit,’ a statement issued by press secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also making a rush trip to Washington next week on Thursday in advance of the planned talks, Sanders announced as the White House highlighted a flurry of diplomatic activity surrounding the June 12 talks.
Trump spoke to Abe on the phone on Monday and agreed then to meet with him again ‘in advance of the expected meeting between the United States and North Korea.’
‘The President and Prime Minister affirmed the shared imperative of achieving the complete and permanent dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missile programs,’ a readout of the call said.
Official White House communications this week indicated that the meeting between Trump and Kim in Singapore was likely to happen in the latest iteration of the on-again, off-again high stakes meeting.
Sanders said that U. S. National Security Advisor John Bolton had been calling his counterparts in South Korea and Japan ‘virtually every day’ and that he spoke to Chung Eui-yong just this morning.
