Seoul: A top US diplomat on Sunday, February 3, travelled to South Korea to meet representatives from Pyongyang and prepare for the second summit between American President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Stephen Biegun, US Special Representative for North Korea, will meet South Korea’s top nuclear envoy Lee Do-hoon, to coordinate on talks with the North Korean regime over its denuclearization, Efe news agency reported.
On Monday, the US envoy is scheduled to meet North Korea’s new negotiator for talks with Washington, Kim Hyok-chol, at the border village of Panmunjom to finalize details of the summit between Trump and Kim.
These meetings are expected to iron out the details and set the date and venue of the summit, two weeks after Trump announced it would be held at the end of February in Vietnam.
Kim Hyok-chol was part of the delegation accompanying former North Korean military Intelligence Chief, Kim Yong-chol, to Washington last month to meet Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
According to US media reports, the Vietnamese city of Da Nang, located along the coast of the South China Sea, is the venue preferred by negotiating teams from both.
North Korea and the US hope that the second summit will restart the stalled denuclearization talks.
At the first summit in Singapore last June, the two leaders agreed to work towards the denuclearization of the Korean Pensinsula in exchange for security guarantees from Washington, but there has been little developments since.
