SEOUL: Senior US and South Korean officials met on 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 earlier amid reports that he’ll meet North Korean officials soon to work out details for the summit.

Trump told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the meeting is set” with Kim, but he provided no further details about the meeting expected around the end of February. The president said there was “a very good chance that we will make a deal.” With the North under economic penalties and the US unwilling to ease them under the North denuclearises, 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 US-North Korea talks ahead of the summit.

South Korean media reported Biegun and his 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.

Published in Dawn, February 4th , 2019