Lee Min-hyung joined The Korea Times in 2014 and has worked as a journalist mainly in Korea’s finance, tech and automotive industry. He specializes in content creation, breaking news and in-depth analysis currently on transportation and mobility. You can reach him via mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr.
North Korea, US fine-tuning details for 2nd summit
Kim Chang-son, de facto chief of staff to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, leaves Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi luxury hotel in Vietnam’s capital after finishing a field inspection on its facility, Saturday (local time). The ranking North Korean official led a 12-member working-level delegation to Vietnam to discuss with U.S. officials a detailed schedule for the upcoming two-day Washington-Pyongyang summit, which kicks off on Feb. 27. / Yonhap
By Lee Min-hyung
Kim Jong-un to visit Vietnam on Feb. 25: report
By Lee Min-hyung
The United States and North Korea will embark on their second pre-summit working-level talks in Vietnam's capital city of Hanoi this week to decide summit agendas and travel routes leaders of the two sides will take during their planned two-day meeting there.
Kim Chang-son, who serves as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's de facto chief of staff, will lead its 12-member delegation for talks with a U.S. delegation possibly headed by Daniel Walsh, a White House deputy chief of staff for operations.
Detailed schedules for their meeting have yet to be unveiled. But with the highly anticipated summit around the corner, both delegations will likely discuss the final details regarding the agenda for dialogue between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, slated to begin on Feb. 27.
The delegations will also exchange their plans on how to transport Trump and Kim during the historic meeting. Kim Chang-son is known as one of the most experienced North Korean officials for the role, and took on the same job during the historic June 12 summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un and the latest inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last September.
On Saturday morning, the North Korean working-level delegation arrived in the host city for the Washington-Pyongyang summit. According to local reports, the U.S. delegation is also known to have arrived in Hanoi on Friday.
Expectations are that both sides will start negotiating such details as early as Sunday even if no official announcements have so far been made.
The second pre-summit working-level meeting came in response to the first one which took place for three days from Feb. 6 in Pyongyang. At that time, Stephen Biegun, the U.S. nuclear envoy for North Korea, met with his counterpart Kim Hyok-chol to fine-tune their differences on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
After ending his Pyongyang visit, Biegun said the meeting was “productive,” but declined to comment on other details, such as the summit agenda.
It remains to be seen whether leaders from Washington and Pyongyang can sign a big deal to move forward the stalled denuclearization momentum on the peninsula.
In their first meeting in June, expectations were that the first-ever summit between the two will pave the way for smooth progress in talks for the North's denuclearization. But no meaningful progress has been made, with both sides showing no signs of coming to specific terms amid disagreements on the timeline and method of denuclearization.
Kim Jong-un to visit Vietnam on Feb. 25
The North's young leader will arrive in Vietnam on Feb. 25 and meet with Vietnam's president and general-secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, Reuters reported Saturday, citing unnamed sources.
During the first Washington-Pyongyang summit, Kim Jong-un also held a summit with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong two days before the historic meeting with Trump.
As North Korea rarely reports on Kim's schedule, no details over his trip to Hanoi have been confirmed.
In particular, all eyes are on what kind of transportation he will take for the Hanoi visit. Chances are he will take either an airplane or train.
Kim took a rented Air China aircraft for his visit to Singapore last June rather than taking his aged private jet, named Chammae-1.