Meeting comes ahead of visit by secretary of state Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang this week to resume talks since Singapore summit
US and North Korean officials are reported to have met in the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas over the weekend, amid reports that Pyongyang is stepping up its nuclear and missile programmes since last month’s Singapore summit.
Andrew Kim, the head of the CIA’s Korea department and Sung Kim, a veteran negotiator who is now US ambassador to the Philippines, met North Korean counterparts at Panmunjom in the DMZ, according to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
The report comes ahead of an expected return to Pyongyang this week by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to resume high-level talks for the first time since the 12 June meeting in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
After that summit, Trump tweeted that: “There is no longer a nuclear threat” from North Korea, but in recent days, multiple leaks from the US intelligence assessment have suggested that the regime’s work on its nuclear and missile programme is not just continuing, but accelerating.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that North Korea had expanded a factory for manufacturing solid fuel ballistic missiles in Hamhung, based on satellite imagery analysed by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey, California.
The Diplomat cited intelligence officials as saying Pyongyang was also continuing work on mobile launchers for one its latest generation of ballistic missiles.
This follows a report by NBC News, also quoting multiple intelligence officials, saying that work had been stepped up at secret uranium enrichment sites .
North Korea has acknowledged running one enrichment plant at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
