Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump met with North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Jong Chol Friday in the Oval Office, the White House announced. Chol last visited the White House on June 1.
It wasn’t immediately known whether he was carrying a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Prior to meeting with the president, Chol met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the administration pushed ahead with plans for a second summit between Trump and Kim.
The two men did not make any statements or answer reporters’ questions.
The meeting comes amid a stalemate in nuclear talks, with North Korea demanding the U.S. first ease sanctions and the U.S. saying there will be no relief until North Korea takes steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Kim Yong Chol, a top aide to Kim Jong Un and the regime’s former spy chief, arrived in Washington late Thursday night, staying at a hotel just blocks north of the White House.
Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol have met several times before, including in New York last May just before Trump and Kim Jong Un met in Singapore. In that meeting, Pompeo and his counterpart hashed out plans for a summit.
Friday’s meeting in Washington was key to taking the North Koreans’ temperature ahead of a second summit and see if such a meeting would be productive, a U.S. official told ABC News.
Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.