Top diplomats of S. Korea, U.S. hold phone talks over DPRK-U.S. summit

SEOUL, June 4 — Top diplomats of South Korea and the United States held a phone conversation on Monday over a summit between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States that got back on track over the weekend.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha talked over the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for about 15 minutes in the morning, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.
Kang and Pompeo exchanged opinions over the recent progress in the DPRK-U.S. summit, including the visit by Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee of the DPRK, to Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump.
After meeting with the ranking DPRK official, Trump said Friday that he will meet top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore as originally scheduled.
The DPRK official, who held a two-day meeting with Pompeo in New York before heading to Washington, delivered the DPRK leader’s personal letter to the U.S. president.
The foreign ministers of Seoul and Washington made an in-depth discussion on how to prepare for the DPRK-U.S. summit successfully, agreeing to seek ways through close consultations to achieve a complete denuclearization and a lasting peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula.
The back-on-track summit between Pyongyang and Washington followed recent twists and turns and the whirlwind of diplomacy.
Trump abruptly cancelled his meeting with the DPRK leader in late May, but the DPRK said the country was ready to sit down with the United States any time in any manner.
Trump reversed course, saying both sides wanted the meeting to happen and it could still go ahead after productive talks.
Multi-track talks between officials from the DPRK and the United States had been held last week in New York, the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom and Singapore.

Xinhua