Day of US-NKorea meetings to salvage summit on tap in NYC

Published On: May 31, 2018 10:40 AM NPT By: Associated Press

North Korea’s Kim Yong Chol, center, leaves a hotel in New York, Wednesday, May 30, 2018. The senior North Korean official arrived in New York on Wednesday in the highest-level official visit to the United States in 18 years, as President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un sought to salvage prospects for a high-stakes nuclear summit. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

NEW YORK, May 31: Top American and North Korean officials plan a full day of meetings in New York aimed at deciding whether a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can be salvaged.

Ahead of the meetings Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the North’s former military intelligence chief, Kim Yong Chol, had dinner Wednesday night. Kim had flown in from Beijing and Pompeo from Washington.

The talks come as preparations for a highly anticipated summit in Singapore barrel ahead amid lingering uncertainty about whether it will actually take place, and when. Trump cancelled the June 12 summit last week, then suggested it could still happen.

U.S. teams have been meeting with North Korean officials in Singapore and in the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone.