Summit diplomacy seems to be heating up... as North Korea's former intel chief is in New York City for talks with the U.S. Secretary of State. The visit comes... as multiple meetings are taking place in different locations to set the agenda for the summit and the regime's denuclearization. Oh Jung-hee has our top story. The right-hand men of Kim Jong-un and President Trump will be meeting soon in New York. North Korea's Kim Yong-chol -- the regime's former spy chief and the current director of its department for inter-Korean relations -- was spotted taking a flight bound for New York on Tuesday afternoon in Beijing. Trump confirmed on Twitter that Kim is coming. And Washington's State Department says... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head over to New York on Wednesday to meet him.
"The Secretary will be heading up to New York tomorrow and I believe returning sometime on Thursday."
Kim and Pompeo's talking points have not been specified. But it's widely believed that their meeting is for the final coordination of the agenda for the Pyongyang-Washington summit -- how North Korea will denuclearize... and how the U.S. will guarantee the Kim Jong-un regime's security. This... as an extension of the North Korea-U.S. working-level talks that took place twice this week at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom. The delegations at Panmunjom -- led respectively by Washington's former negotiator on North Korea, Sung Kim, and Pyongyang's Vice Foreign Minister, Choe Son-hui -- met on Sunday and Wednesday.
"Well, this will be the Secretary's third meeting with Kim Yong-chol. They've had, obviously, very deep conversations where they've talked about a lot of detail about what the United States' expectations are."
"If Kim Yong-chol and Mike Pompeo settleD on a basic draft of their agreement and President Trump accepts it, then that will lead to a confirmation that the summit will take place for sure. The fact that Kim Yong-chol is visiting the U.S. -- that in itself means that coordination between the two is almost over,... with only a few factors left to be resolved."
Kim Yong-chol is the first high-level North Korean official to step foot on U.S. soil in 18 years. Attention is on whether he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump... and deliver a letter from Kim Jong-un -- much like when Pompeo twice met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang. Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News.
