The meeting appears to be the first face-to-face contact between U.S. officials and their North Korean counterparts since President Donald Trump met with leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.
Sung Kim, formerly an ambassador to South Korea and a nuclear negotiator with the North during previous talks, has taken on a key role in dialogue with Pyongyang in recent months. In late May, the envoy led a meeting between U.S. officials and North Korean officials in the demilitarized zone ahead of the Singapore summit.
A State Department spokesperson said that Kim had led a delegation that met with North Korean counterparts in the village of Panmunjom on Sunday, where they discussed the next steps toward implementing the joint declaration signed by Trump and Kim Jong Un last month.
“Our goal remains the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, as agreed to by Chairman Kim in Singapore,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The meeting comes amid growing scrutiny of Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearization and as joint efforts to repatriate the remains of U.S. troops from North Korea take longer than many anticipated.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that U.S. intelligence officials had evidence showing that North Korea does not intend to give up its entire nuclear stockpile, despite Trump’s claim that there is “no longer a nuclear threat” from the country after the Singapore summit.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with North Korean officials soon to continue negotiations. Pompeo, who has taken a leading role in negotiations with the North Korean leader, has said it may take years to implement an agreement that would eliminate the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, White House national security adviser John Bolton said that Pompeo would be “discussing this with the North Koreans in the near future about really how to dismantle all of their WMD and ballistic missile programs in a year.”
According to reports in South Korea, Sung Kim met with North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun Hee at Panmunjom for an hour and a half Sunday. The reports, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said that Andrew Kim, head of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center, delivered a letter from Pompeo to Kim Yong Chol, North Korea’s main envoy in talks.
Asked about the U.S. diplomat’s visit, Kim Eui-keum, a spokesman for South Korea’s Blue House, said that they were aware of the meeting but that it would be inappropriate to comment further. Sung Kim was later photographed leaving the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul early Monday morning.
