WASHINGTON _ The Trump administration is ramping up preparations for a possible nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore next month, the White House said Tuesday, days after President Donald Trump had publicly scrapped the meeting.
"We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more," the president tweeted Tuesday morning. "Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!"
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has traveled twice to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un since March, will travel to New York to meet with the North Korean emissary, who is expected to arrive on Wednesday.
Washington and Pyongyang don't have diplomatic relations but the two long-time adversaries sometimes use North Korea's diplomatic mission at the United Nations as a back channel to directly communicate.
A separate U.S. delegation will meet later this week with North Korean envoys in the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. And Joe Hagin, the deputy White House chief of staff, is already in Singapore coordinating logistics in case the June 12 summit is put back on the calendar.
Last Thursday, Trump wrote a public letter to Kim pulling out of the meeting, blaming what Trump called "tremendous anger and open hostility" from Pyongyang but leaving the door open to future talks _ a letter the White House now credits with creating new momentum for a historic sit-down.
Since the May 24 letter, "the North Koreans have been engaging," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Tuesday. "The United States continues to actively prepare for President Trump's expected summit with leader Kim in Singapore."
Trump also will meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on June 7 at the White House, Sanders said. The two leaders have met six times so far, most recently a month ago at the White House, as Trump tries to line up support for his unconventional nuclear diplomacy.
Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, has been in touch with South Korean and Japanese officials "virtually every day, including speaking with his South Korean counterpart this morning," Sanders said.
