Talks With North Korea May Be Back On Schedule
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/CBS News) -- The United States and North Korea are continuing talks aimed at getting a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un back on the schedule.
One of the most senior officials in North Korea is coming to America.
A summit between Trump and Kim is closer to being back on again.
"We've got two delegations over there working on logistics, working on the diplomatic talks. And for the first time in 18 years, a North Korean official will be on American soil," said Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway.
The U.S. has a delegation in Seoul and another in Singapore, the site of the possible summit, to work on logistics. The Seoul delegation was seen leaving its hotel Tuesday morning to head to negotiations.
Meanwhile, Kim Yong Chol, a senior official in North Korea's ruling Workers Party was seen boarding a flight from Beijing to New York.
President Trump confirmed Chol's destination, tweeting "We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning summit, and more. Kim Yong Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!"
Chol was by Kim's side when he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-In Saturday.
He's also North Korea's former spy chief and is credited with authorizing cyber attacks in the U.S., including the hack on Sony pictures. That landed him on the U.S. sanctions list, which bars him from entering the U.S., which mean he's likely been granted a waiver to make the trip to New York.
The previous highest-level North Korean official visit to the U.S. was in 2000, when late National Defense Commission First Vice Chairman Jo Myong Rok visited Washington, South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
Mr. Trump withdrew from a planned June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un last Thursday, citing hostile North Korean comments, but has since said the meeting in Singapore could still happen.
In their second meeting in a month, Moon said Kim expressed willingness to cooperate to end confrontation and work toward peace for the sake of a successful summit with the U.S. president. But Kim also said he was unsure whether he could trust the U.S. over its promise to end hostile policies against North Korea and provide security assurances if the country does abandon its nuclear weapons, according to Moon.
Despite Kim's apparent eagerness for a summit with Mr. Trump, there are lingering doubts about whether he will fully relinquish his nuclear weapons, which he may see as his only guarantee of survival. Moon has insisted Kim can be persuaded to abandon his nuclear facilities, materials and bombs in a verifiable and irreversible way in exchange for credible security and economic guarantees.
U.S. and South Korean officials haven't confirmed the details of the pre-summit negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang at the border.
The officials may discuss bridging the gap between Washington and Pyongyang on what a deal on the North's nuclear weapons would look like. There's also speculation that American officials are trying to persuade the North Koreans to export a certain number of its nuclear warheads at an early stage as proof of its commitment to denuclearize.
U.S. officials have talked about a comprehensive one-shot deal in which North Korea eliminates its nukes first and receives rewards later. But Kim, through two summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping in March and May, has called for a phased and synchronized process in which every action he takes is met with a reciprocal reward from the United States.
Seoul has been advocating an alternative approach in which the North's comprehensive commitment and credible actions toward denuclearization are followed by a phased but compressed process of inspection and verifiable dismantling. Before he canceled the summit, Mr. Trump did not rule out an incremental approach that would provide incentives along the way to the North.
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