Seoul: North Korean special representative Kim Hyok Chol, for the US arrived Tuesday in Beijing, apparently en route to Vietnam to meet his Washington counterpart ahead of a second scheduled summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. Chol arrived in the Chinese capital at around 10 am (0200 GMT) and is expected to board a plane bound for Hanoi later in the day.
Kim’s trip comes three days after Kim Jong Un’s de-facto chief of staff, Kim Chang Son, landed in Hanoi to discuss protocol and security matters with the US team ahead of the summit, February 27-28.
Chol and his US counterpart Stephen Biegun were engaged in three days of talks in Pyongyang earlier this month, exploring each side’s positions on de-nuclearisation ahead of the much-anticipated meeting.
Biegun said the talks had been productive, but more dialogue was needed. “We have some hard work to do with the DPRK between now and then,” Biegun had said, adding that he was ‘confident that if both sides stay committed we can make real progress here’.
The US State Department said talks during Biegun’s trip explored Trump and Kim Jong Un’s ‘commitments of complete de-nuclearisation, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula’.
Specifically, discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could have been on the table, with Biegun last month stating Trump was ‘ready to end this war’.
Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as ‘reality TV’.
AFP