NEW YORK _ With toasts and a dinner of filet mignon, America's top diplomat and North Korea's top negotiator have met for the first time on U.S. soil in a push to determine whether a nuclear summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can go ahead.
Trump told reporters he expects the delegation from Pyongyang to travel to Washington on Friday to deliver a letter to him from the North Korean ruler.
"I look forward to seeing what's in the letter," Trump said as he left Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Texas. Asked if a deal was coming together, he said: "I think it will be very positive ... . The meetings have been very positive."
Trump said he still hopes the summit will take place in Singapore on June 12 as originally scheduled, but he left open the possibility the advance talks would fall through.
"I want it to be meaningful," he 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."
In New York, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea's powerful former intelligence chief, Kim Yong Chol, met for about 90 minutes over dinner Wednesday night and then began formal talks Thursday morning that were expected to continue all day. 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.
The two "top dogs," as a State Department official called them, hope to bridge the vast gaps over whether North Korea is prepared to agree to nuclear disarmament _ and what Washington will offer in exchange.
"We want to see if we have the makings of a successful summit," said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
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," the State Department official said, "they (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 U.S. and the United Nations Security Council have imposed to isolate it diplomatically and strangle its economy.
"What 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 has dangled the possibility of economic aid if North Korea cooperates. In the past, North Korea has also demanded 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, is frequently described as Kim Jong Un's right-hand man. Pompeo was confirmed as secretary of State last month after 15 months as director of the CIA.
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 Gen. Kim.
"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.
