Trump to meet North Korean official in the Oval Office in possible prelude to 2nd nuclear summit - Fox News

President Trump will meet with a top North Korean official Friday afternoon in the Oval Office, the White House confirmed.

The face-to-face comes after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Kim Yong-chol, North Korea's lead negotiator, in the nation’s capital early Friday morning to negotiate terms that could lead to a second nuclear summit between Trump and Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un.

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Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol didn’t shake hands or respond to reporters’ questions but did smile during a photo opportunity ahead of their meeting at a hotel in Northwest Washington.

Kim Yong-chol is expected to carry a letter from the North Korean dictator to Trump. Last year he presented Trump with an oversized letter in the Oval Office that led to the leaders’ historic June summit.

“President Donald J. Trump will meet with Kim Yong-chol, Vice Chairman of the Workers Party of Korea and Chairman of the Korea Asia Pacific Peace Committee, today at 12:15pm in the Oval Office,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “They will discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea’s final, fully verified denuclearization.”

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, walk from a photo opportunity at the The Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaste)

Trump has spoken several times of having a second summit with Kim early this year and has exchanged multiple letters with the North Korean leader despite little tangible progress on a vague denuclearization agreement reached at their first meeting in Singapore last June. Since then, several private analysts have published reports detailing continuing North Korean development of nuclear and missile technology.

At a conference of U.S. diplomats at the State Department on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of progress. He called the Trump-Kim dialogue "promising" but stressed that "we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region."

A planned meeting between Pompeo and Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. U.S. officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.

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Separately, a North Korean diplomat arrived in Sweden on Friday for an unscheduled visit leading some to speculate it might be the spot for a second summit.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Vilhelm Rundquist said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has landed in Sweden “to take part in talks in a minor format where international experts take part.”

He declined to give further details. Sweden’s TT news agency said Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom would also attend the event.

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It is possible that U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun would join the meeting later, The Associated Press, citing an anonymous source, reported.

Fox News' Gregg Re and The Associated Press contrbuted to this report.  

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