US negotiators visit Pyongyang for summit preparation

By Lee Min-hyung

Sung Kim

Choe Son-hui

A high-level United States delegation ― led by Sung Kim, a veteran nuclear negotiator ― visited North Korea, Sunday, to initiate preparatory dialogue ahead of a historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un slated for June 12.

The delegation includes Allison Hooker, a Korea specialist on the National Security Council and Randall Schriver, assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Pentagon.

They reportedly met with their North Korean counterparts, Choe Son-hui, the regime's vice foreign minister, and Choe Kang-il who is in charge of North American affairs in North Korea. No details have been confirmed over the schedule of the working-level dialogue, which started on Sunday at Tongilgak on the northern side of the truce village of Panmunjeom.

“Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the summit between Kim Jong-un and myself,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, confirming the preparatory dialogue ahead of the summit.

Sung Kim has served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines since 2016. The Korean-American diplomat is also cited as one of the top diplomats with expertise in inter-Korean affairs.

He also worked as the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 2011 to 2014, having extensive experience on North Korean nuclear affairs.

This is not the first time that Sung Kim has met with Choe Son-hui. In 2016, the two diplomats exchanged aggressive rhetoric against each other in a peace dialogue in Beijing. At that time, the U.S. diplomat strongly condemned the regime for continuously carrying out bellicose military provocations with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear threats.

The regime, however, did not step back from the verbal threats from the U.S, with Choe pledging not to give up its nuclear weapons without complete denuclearization across the globe.

She has much experience as the regime's nuclear negotiator and has stood at the center of managing U.S. affairs in the North's foreign ministry. She has been promoted to vice foreign minister this year.

Last week, the ranking North Korean diplomat made global headlines for her scathing criticism of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, calling him ignorant and stupid due to his recent interview comments that the North could end up like Libya unless it cooperates with the U.S.

In particular, her aggressive comments were cited as the key reason for Trump to decide last week to cancel the Washington-Pyongyang summit.

For this reason, expectations were that she may not be able to appear at the dialogue table at least for the summit agenda.

But with Washington and Pyongyang regaining momentum for dialogue, Choe proved herself to be one of the most influential diplomats in the regime by sitting face to face with the working-level delegation from the U.S.

She is also known to have studied in such countries as Austria and China when she was young, and worked at the North's foreign ministry since the 1980s.