Trump meets with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol to discuss denuclearisation

The Oval Office meeting comes as a surprise while officials reportedly discuss a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un

Donald Trump met with North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office to discuss denuclearisation, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has confirmed.

The press secretary released a statement Friday after reports revealed an Oval Office meeting had been scheduled between the president and North Korea's lead negotiator, saying the two "will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea’s final, fully verified denuclearisation."

Mr Trump's meeting followed a preliminary exchange between the North Korean official and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met Mr Yong Chol at a hotel in Washington before travelling to the White House. The two were expected to discuss arrangements for a second summit between the US president and North Korea's regime leader Kim Jong Un.

That meeting lasted under an hour, according to reports, and Mr Pompeo arrived to the White House without the North Korean official shortly after. He did not respond to questions shouted by journalists about how the meeting went. The White House confirmed the second meeting was scheduled for 12:15 p.m., though there was no sign of Mr Yong Chol on the White House grounds by that point.

A State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, said Mr Pompeo and the North Korean official had a “good” discussion toward progress on commitments Mr Trump and Mr Kim made at their June summit in Singapore.

The president has spoken several times of having a second summit early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with Mr Kim despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearisation agreement reached at their historic first meeting.

Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology. A planned meeting between Mr Pompeo and Mr Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had cancelled the session.

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

Mr 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.

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the dialogue between Mr Trump and Mr Kim was “promising” but that “we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.”

Mr Trump has offered assurances that a second summit would allow him and Mr Kim to seal a deal resolving the nuclear standoff and improving a relationship marked by decades of animosity and mistrust since the Korean War.

Reporting by AP