SEOUL, South Korea -- Senior U.S. and South Korean officials met Sunday to discuss an expected second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump's special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in South Korea amid reports that he'll meet with North Korean officials soon to work out details for the summit.
Trump said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation that "the meeting is set" with Kim, but he provided no further details about the summit, which is expected around the end of February. The president said there was "a very good chance that we will make a deal."
With North Korea operating under economic penalties and the U.S. unwilling to ease them until the country denuclearizes, Trump said Kim "has a chance to have North Korea be a tremendous economic behemoth. It has a chance to be one of the great economic countries in the world. He can't do that with nuclear weapons, and he can't do that on the path they're on now."
Seoul's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Biegun and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, held consultations about working-level U.S.-North Korea talks ahead of the summit.
South Korean media reported Biegun and North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol will likely meet at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or in the North's capital of Pyongyang early this week.
Little progress has been made toward ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons since Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore in June. During that summit, Kim pledged to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, though he did not provide a timetable or road map for his disarmament steps.
Last year, North Korea suspended nuclear and missile tests, dismantled its nuclear test site and parts of its rocket launch facility, and released American detainees. The North demanded that the United States take corresponding measures such as sanctions relief.
U.S. officials want North Korea to take more significant steps, saying sanctions will stay in place until the country denuclearizes.
Satellite footage taken since the June summit has indicated North Korea has been continuing to produce nuclear materials at its weapons factories. On Tuesday, U.S. intelligence chiefs told Congress that they believe there is little likelihood Kim will voluntarily give up his nuclear weapons or the missiles capable of carrying them.
Biegun said last week that Kim committed to "the dismantlement and destruction of North Korea's plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities" during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in September and at a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in October.
Some experts say that during a second summit, North Korea would likely seek to trade the destruction of its main Yongbyon nuclear complex for a U.S. promise to formally declare the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, open a liaison office in Pyongyang and allow the North to resume some lucrative economic projects with South Korea.
North and South Korea remain in a technical state of war because the Korean War ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty.
Also Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are considering a meeting on February 27 and 28 in the coastal city of Da Nang, Vietnam, citing a person familiar with the discussions.
The newspaper said Trump mentioned this possibility when a Chinese trade delegation visited Washington last week for trade talks, and that he looked forward to meeting Xi once or twice to finalize a trade deal with China.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Xi would keep in touch with Trump through various means, according to the newspaper.
Information for this article was contributed by Niluksi Koswanage of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 02/04/2019