NEW YORK _ North Korea's longtime spy chief and main negotiator will meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday as high-level talks in New York wrapped up with growing signs that the stalled nuclear disarmament summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place in less than two weeks.
Kim Yong Chol, a four-star general who is one of North Korea's most powerful figures, will deliver a letter to Trump from Kim Jong Un, Trump told reporters.
"I look forward to seeing what's in the letter," Trump said. Asked if a deal was coming together, he said: "I think it will be very positive. ... The meetings have been very positive."
Wrapping up about 4 { hours of meetings with Gen. Kim in New York, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said details for the proposed summit could be finalized in "days." Planning for the summit, originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, has intensified this week in a flurry of meetings in New York, Singapore and in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.
"It would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity to go to waste," Pompeo told reporters in New York.
"We can create a future defined by collaboration and friendship," he added.
He conceded that the two sides still have not determined what steps they must take to satisfy the U.S. demand for denuclearization and North Korea's demand for ironclad security guarantees and easing of sanctions.
Pompeo hosted Kim Yong Chol, considered leader Kim Jong Un's right-hand man, at a steak, corn and cheese dinner Wednesday night in New York, followed by long talks on Thursday morning. A second meeting scheduled for the afternoon was canceled, possibly a sign that there had been points of agreement.
They met at the residence of the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, an apartment with a spectacular view of the East River.
Trump said he still hopes the summit will take place in Singapore on June 12, but he left open the possibility that the advance talks taking place in multiple sites could still fail.
"I want it to be meaningful," Trump said of a possible summit. "It doesn't mean it gets all done at one meeting. Maybe you have to have a second or a third. And maybe we'll have none."
Prospects for the Singapore summit have careened up and down as both sides threatened one another and engaged in diplomatic brinkmanship, with Trump announcing on May 24 that he was pulling out _ and then quickly jumping back.
"Between now and if we're going to have a summit," a State Department official told reporters, the North Koreans "are going to have to make clear what they're willing to do."
"And in order for a summit to be successful, the North Koreans have to do things that they have not done before," the official added.
Separate U.S. teams have met with North Korean officials this week in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and in Singapore, in efforts to work out the complex logistics and agenda for the proposed summit.
Going into any talks, the Trump administration officially is demanding what it calls "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization."
That would require Pyongyang to give up its entire nuclear arsenal and weapons building infrastructure and development programs, and submit to intrusive international inspections and monitoring to ensure the shift is permanent.
Privately, there is increasing acknowledgment in the administration that any disarmament will not be immediate but could take years, and will require U.S. concessions along the way _ a step-by-step process that some senior White House aides have previously rejected, citing North Korea's history of reneging on its promises.
North Korea wants ironclad security guarantees and the easing of punitive economic sanctions that the United States and the U.N. Security Council have imposed to isolate it diplomatically and strangle its economy.
"We have to convince them," the State Department official said, that "their nuclear program has made them less secure, that there's a better path forward, that we can work with them."
Pompeo, who was confirmed as secretary of state last month after 15 months as CIA director, had dangled the possibility of economic aid if North Korea cooperates. In the past, North Korea has also demanded that the Pentagon reduce its military presence in South Korea, where about 30,000 U.S. troops are based.
Kim Yong Chol, the most senior North Korean official to come to the United States since 2000, handles key negotiations for the leader, including talks with the United States and with South Korea.
In 2010, the Obama administration placed Kim Yong Chol on a blacklist as chief of North Korea's premier intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and its role in the export of arms and military equipment.
In 2015, the Obama administration blamed Gen. Kim for the cyberattack on Sony Pictures. South Korea has sanctioned him as well, accusing Gen. Kim of orchestrating several attacks on South Korean targets, including the torpedoing of a warship in 2010 that killed 46 sailors. The European Union also has sanctioned him.
Because of the sanctions, he needed a waiver from the administration to enter the United States, and will need another one if he is to travel to Washington to deliver the letter.
"I think we are looking for something historic. I think we're looking for something that has never been done before," the State Department official said.
The diplomacy occurred as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un on Thursday. During the meeting, Lavrov invited the North Korean leader to visit Russia.
"Come _ we will be very happy," Lavrov told Kim, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Kim said he "appreciates that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is opposed to the hegemony of the U.S.," Interfax reported.
"You are very outspoken and we are always ready to negotiate with the Russian side on this matter," Kim told Lavrov, adding that North Korea was interested in developing relations with Russia, the Russian news agency reported.
