SINGAPORE—Senior U.S. and North Korean officials were locked in last-minute negotiations Monday trying to iron out differences ahead of a summit meeting between the two countries’ leaders, while America’s top diplomat said Washington’s position on denuclearization was “clear and unchanged.”
While teams from the two sides huddled in a conference room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said President Donald Trump was “well-prepared” for his face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, set for Tuesday morning in this wealthy city-state.
Earlier on Twitter, Mr. Pompeo said: “We remain committed to the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Messrs. Trump and Kim generally kept low profiles on Monday.
For most of the day, the North Korean leader appeared to have remained inside his hotel, the St. Regis Singapore, according to people familiar with the matter.
A group of North Korean officials, including No Kwang Chol, Mr. Kim’s newly-appointed defense minister, however, appeared to have left the hotel on a sightseeing tour, one of the people said.
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Mr. Trump met with the summit’s host, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, before heading to a closed-door event with American diplomats.
“As you know, we’ve got a very interesting meeting tomorrow,” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Lee as the two sat down for lunch. He said he expected the meeting with Mr. Kim to “work out very nicely.”
Meantime, at the Ritz-Carlton, Sung Kim, the U.S.’s former top envoy on North Korea—who is now Washington’s ambassador to the Philippines—met for several hours with Choe Son Hui, the North’s top diplomat on U.S. affairs.
It was the seventh time the two negotiating teams have met ahead of the summit, a White House official said.
For the summit Tuesday, the White House has set aside two hours for a one-on-one meeting between Messrs. Trump and Kim, but U.S. officials said there is no set time for the talks to finish. The two leaders are expected to meet publicly and shake hands before going behind closed doors for their deliberations.
After that meeting, top aides will join the two leaders for expanded talks. Mr. Pompeo and John Bolton, the national security adviser, are expected to join in, a White House official said.
The U.S. delegation also includes John Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, and Matthew Pottinger, a top Asia adviser at the National Security Council.
Mr. Trump is currently scheduled to leave Singapore at around 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The North Korean delegation currently has flights scheduled to depart Singapore on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Tuesday flight is due to leave at 2 p.m. local time, five hours after the summit is scheduled to start, this person said. It isn’t clear which plane Mr. Kim will be on.
Mr. Kim’s delegation flew into Singapore on Sunday using three planes. The North Korean leader arrived in a Chinese jetliner, while two Soviet-designed aircraft bearing North Korean markings—an Il-62 passenger jet and an Il-76 cargo plane—also landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a regular briefing on Monday that the Air China jet was provided at North Korea’s request.
Meantime, in Seoul, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that while he was pleased by the prospect of dialogue, he also warned that the underlying issues would take a long time to resolve.
“The relationship of deep-rooted hostility and the North Korean nuclear issue cannot be resolved in one single action through a meeting between leaders,” Mr. Moon said during a meeting with his senior aides on Monday, according to a transcript released by his office.
“Even after the two leaders have initiated dialogue in a big way, we may need a long process that could take one year, two years or even longer to completely resolve the issues concerned,” Mr. Moon said.
Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com, Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com and Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com
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