Top North Korean general on way to US ahead of summit

Seoul: President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday that a senior North Korean official is headed to New York for talks as preparations for his historic summit with Kim Jong Un gather pace.

"Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!" Trump wrote in a tweet, hailing the formation of a "great team" for the talks.

General Kim Yong Chol landed at Beijing airport on Tuesday and will journey on to New York the following day after talks with Chinese officials, according to South Korea´s Yonhap news agency.

The trip is part of a flurry of diplomacy before the on-again, off-again summit originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

Trump cancelled the talks last week, citing "open hostility" from the North, but since then both sides have dialled down the rhetoric and the process appears to be back on track.

US negotiators, headed by Washington´s current ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, met North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas on Sunday.

The State Department said a separate team of White House officials has headed to Singapore to sort out logistics.

Chung Sung-yoon, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Kim Yong Chol would be the most senior North Korean official to step onto US soil since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok met President Bill Clinton in 2000.

The general has long been a right-hand man to North Korea´s leader, playing a front-seat role during recent rounds of diplomacy aimed at ending the nuclear stalemate on the Korean peninsula.

He sat next to Trump´s daughter Ivanka, who is also a White House aide, during February´s closing ceremony for the Winter Olympics in the South Korean resort of Pyeongchang which was a turning point in the nuclear crisis.

He also accompanied Kim Jong Un on both of his recent trips to China to meet President Xi Jinping, and held talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he travelled to Pyongyang.

"Kim´s official counterpart is Pompeo but he may also push for meetings with (National Security Advisor John) Bolton and even Trump if possible," Chung told AFP.