Trump, Kim schedule summit for February

No word yet on location of new talks

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol meet Friday at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington before visiting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol meet Friday at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington before visiting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump will meet with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, in late February, the White House announced Friday, continuing a high-level diplomatic dialogue that has eased tensions but shown little progress in eliminating the North's nuclear arsenal.

News of a second meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader came after Trump's 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office with a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, who traveled to Washington to discuss denuclearization talks. Trump and Kim Jong Un are to meet near the end of February at a place to be announced later, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"The United States is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea until we see fully and verified denuclearization," Sanders said "We've had very good steps and good faith from the North Koreans in releasing the hostages and other moves. And so we're going to continue those conversations and the president looks forward to the next meeting."

In May, North Korea released three American detainees and sent them home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after his 90-minute meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.

The second summit signals stepped-up efforts by both countries to continue talks. Trump has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean leader though little tangible progress has been seen on the vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting in June in Singapore.

On Friday, Pompeo met with the North Korean envoy at a Washington hotel before the White House meeting, and the two had lunch together afterward.

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year. Vietnam has been considered as a possible summit venue, along with Thailand, Hawaii and Singapore.

Since their Singapore sit-down in June, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Pompeo and the envoy, who is North Korea's former spy chief, in New York last November was abruptly canceled. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had called off the session.

The first step the North Koreans were expected to take after the June meeting was a detailed inventory of their nuclear assets. That was to include the number of weapons they have produced -- variously estimated at 20 to 60 -- the locations of those weapons, any nuclear materials used to produce new weapons and a detailed list of their missiles and missile launchers.

The United States wanted to use the list to truth-test the North, comparing it to what U.S. intelligence agencies have gathered over the past 30 years. But the North Koreans have complained to Pompeo and other visiting Americans that the inventory would amount to a targeting list, telling the United States what to attack should Trump ever order a pre-emptive strike.

For months, that issue produced a stalemate in diplomatic talks, along with the U.S. insistence that major steps toward denuclearization would have to precede any initial lifting of sanctions.

But in November, Vice President Mike Pence began to loosen the conditions, telling NBC News that North Korea did not have to turn over its inventory to secure a second meeting with Trump. At the time, Pence seemed to acknowledge that the Singapore meeting had resulted in agreements so vague that they allowed the North to drag its feet.

"I think it will be absolutely imperative in this next summit that we come away with a plan for identifying all of the weapons in question, identifying all the development sites, allowing for inspections of the sites and the plan for dismantling nuclear weapons," Pence said, noting that it was time to "see results."

Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for National Interest, said any talks between the two nations are a positive development, but the hard work of negotiating an agreement has only begun.

"Both nations must now show at least some tangible benefits from their diplomatic efforts during a second summit, or risk their efforts being panned as nothing more than reality TV," Kazianis said.

As a possible first step, Kazianis said, North Korea could agree to close its nuclear centrifuge facility at Yongbyon in exchange for some relief from U.S. sanctions or a peace declaration ending the Korean War. The three-year war between North and South Korea ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

"Such a deal allows both sides to come away with a much-needed win that can breathe new life into negotiations," he said.

South Korea said it expects the second summit between Trump and Kim to be "a turning point in firmly establishing a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula."

Kim expressed frustration in an annual New Year's address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit "to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

Kim's latest trip to China, his fourth since last year, came as the North's strongest ally has encouraged negotiations with the U.S. while at the same time arguing in favor of an immediate easing of sanctions.

The U.S. and North Korea seemed close to war at points during 2017. The North staged a series of weapons tests that brought it closer to its nuclear goal of one day being able to target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The two sides then turned to insulting each other: Trump called Kim "Little Rocket Man" and North Korea said Trump was a "dotard."

Kim abruptly turned to diplomacy with Seoul and Washington last year, possibly fearing economic harm from the penalties imposed over the weapons tests.

Still, even after the Singapore summit, the first between U.S. and North Korean leaders, there has been little real progress in nuclear disarmament.

Independent analysts are highly skeptical that North Korea will easily abandon a nuclear arsenal constructed in the face of deep poverty and probably seen by Kim as his only guarantee of his government's survival.

Separately, a North Korean diplomat arrived in Sweden to take part in an unannounced meeting in Stockholm, officials said Friday.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui landed in Sweden "to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part."

He declined to give further details. Sweden's TT news agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom also would attend the event.

"I have nothing to say presently. It's up to the parties and the countries whether there will be a result," Wallstrom said. "We are proud if we can contribute. If they want us to contribute, we do it."

The special U.S. envoy for North Korea negotiations, Steve Biegun, is set to travel to Sweden for further talks over the weekend.

Swedish officials have declined to confirm any further details about the meeting.

Sweden has had diplomatic relations with Pyongyang since 1973 and is one of only a few Western countries with an embassy there. It provides consular services for the United States.

Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee, Deb Riechmann and Jan M. Olsen of The Associated Press; and by Mark Landler and David E. Sanger of The New York Times.

A Section on 01/19/2019

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