US, North Korea begin follow

By Kim Rahn

Sung Kim, left, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, leaves a hotel in Seoul, Monday, a day after working-level talks with North Korean officials at Panmunjeom over follow-up measures for the North's denuclearization. / Yonhap

Washington and Pyongyang have started follow-up talks to discuss the detailed process of North Korea's denuclearization, after a dialogue hiatus of more than two weeks since the historic summit between their leaders.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited North Korea and led negotiations with Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the June 12 summit, is expected to visit the country again later this week. The outcome of talks this time is likely to determine the timeline of denuclearization and the compensation Pyongyang can get in return

American delegates led by Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim met North Korean officials at the northern side of the truce village of Panmunjeom, Sunday, according to government sources and some U.S. media.

This was the first face-to-face dialogue between U.S. and North Korean officials after the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

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Sung Kim led working-level negotiations at Panmunjeom with his counterpart, North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, before the summit.

Sunday's meeting may have been in preparation for Pompeo's visit to Pyongyang and talks with higher-level officials there. Some Japanese media reported the U.S. secretary of state would visit Pyongyang, July 6, and head to Tokyo the next day.

During the visit to Pyongyang, Pompeo and his North Korean counterparts will have to discuss how to implement agreements reached at the Singapore summit, such as completely denuclearizing the North and restoring relations between the two countries.

The two sides are likely to talk about when and how North Korea will shut down its ballistic missile engine testing site, which Kim Jong-un promised Trump he would do, and how they will draw up a list of weapons to be inspected and destroyed.

Trump's national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview, Sunday, that Pompeo "will be discussing this with the North Koreans in the near future, about, really, how to dismantle all of their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and ballistic missile programs in a year."

It was also learned that the U.S. delegates delivered Pompeo's message to the North Korean officials. Andrew Kim, the head of the CIA's Korea Mission Center who accompanied Pompeo when he met Kim Jong-un in May, delivered the letter from Pompeo to Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Speculation is that the letter contains a U.S. proposal for the denuclearization process. Pompeo said earlier he would not set a deadline for denuclearization, while Bolton said in the interview that the U.S. would be able to dismantle the overwhelming bulk of North Korea's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons within a year if Pyongyang cooperates and fully discloses its weapons.

Pompeo may also call for a swift recovery and repatriation of the remains of American soldiers who were killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, as agreed in the Singapore summit. The U.S. has already sent 215 empty caskets to the North Korean border to contain the remains.

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