Top North Korean nuclear negotiator headed to Washington: Reports

The State Department would neither confirm nor deny South Korean media reports Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will hold high-level talks with his North Korean counterpart in Washington later this week.

While a diplomatic source familiar with top North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Yong Chol’s travel plan told The Washington Times the meeting is tentatively slated for Thursday or Friday, a senior State Department official said: “we have no meetings to announce.”

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that Mr. Kim is headed to Washington to work with Mr. Pompeo on nailing down a date and venue for a second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The report, according to Reuters, cited an unidentified source as saying U.S. officials are considering easing sanctions on North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang sending abroad its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in addition to freezing its nuclear program.

National security sources have pushed back against that narrative in recent interviews with The Times, saying the Trump administration remains firmly committed to withholding any sanctions relief until North Korea has fully and verifiably abandoned its nuclear arsenal and programs.

If a meeting between Mr. Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol, a former North Korean spy chief, does occur later this week, it would represent a major step forward in denuclearization talks that have stalled during the months since Mr. Trump and Kim Jong Un held their first historic summit in Singapore last June.

A previously planned meeting between Mr. Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart was abruptly canceled in November. Following the cancellation, North Korean state media warned that Pyongyang would not denuclearize unless the U.S. removes its own nuclear threat from the Korean peninsula. Most analysts read the warning as a call by the North Koreans for the Trump administration to consider pulling U.S. military forces from South Korea.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday that the government in Seoul had confirmed recent diplomatic contact taking place between U.S. and North Korean officials, but did not elaborate.

“When the date and venue for the follow-up negotiations between the North and U.S. are fixed, there will be a public announcement on that,” Noh Kyu-duk, the ministry’s spokesman, said during a regular press briefing, Yonhap reported.