Revealing the location of the US-North Korea summit

CNN cited a report dated April 7 saying that officials from the two countries had discussed several times and met in a third country to discuss the location of the summit between Mr. Trump and Kim Jong-un.

According to US administration officials, the North Korean leader wants the meeting to take place in Pyongyang, while the US is looking for a neutral location such as Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s proposal to meet with President Trump was not confirmed publicly by Pyongyang but was conveyed by a South Korean envoy. However, Pyongyang affirmed that its leader was willing to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to the New York Post.

The US-North Korea summit, considered the first historic meeting between the two countries, could take place in the next few weeks, in late May or June, US officials said.

Because the United States and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, the upcoming summit is a sensitive matter. US diplomats have used a back channel, through the North Korean mission to the United Nations, to conduct preliminary negotiations.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who began serving as Trump’s national security adviser on April 9, is expected to play a major role in planning the meeting. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, may meet with North Korean intelligence chiefs ahead of the Trump-Kim summit.

Also on April 7, representatives of North Korea and South Korea met to discuss establishing a hotline between the two leaders, ahead of the April 27 meeting between Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.