Memories of 2000 before the US-North Korea summit

However, history shows that visits like these are not enough to guarantee that a meeting will definitely take place.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Photo: AP

Eighteen years ago, glimmers of hope that were raised after a similar delegation from North Korea arrived in Washington to prepare for the summit quickly faded.

Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, who was personally confirmed by President Trump to be on his way to New York, has played a key role in the diplomatic process after leader Kim Jong-un made conciliatory moves with Washington and Seoul earlier this year.

He is one of the few North Korean officials to have accompanied Kim Jong-un at four high-level meetings with foreign leaders in recent months.

He visited South Korea in February this year to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in the early stages of the diplomatic process of reconciliation and friendship initiated by the North Korean leader.

Kim Yong-chol, about 72 years old, is a controversial figure in public opinion abroad.

Mr. Kim Yong-chol is said to have come to the US to discuss the upcoming summit. Photo CNN

Before being put in charge of inter-Korean relations in 2016, he was a four-star general and commander of the military intelligence unit. He is believed to be behind a series of serious provocations by North Korea, including two attacks in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans and the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures. In recent years, both Seoul and Washington have placed him on sanctions lists.

South Korean media said that Mr. Kim Yong-chol is likely to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently visited Pyongyang twice to finalize preparations for the US-North Korea summit.

However, it is unclear what other schedules Kim Yong-chol will have in the US. Media reports said Secretary of State Pompeo may make a third trip to Pyongyang after Kim Yong Chol arrives in New York.

While Kim Yong-chol's trip may brighten the prospects for the upcoming summit, past experience has shown that things can fall apart at the last minute even after high-level talks.

In October 2000, late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sent Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok to Washington on a similar goodwill mission.

Jo, who died in 2010, was the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the United States since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. His visit to the United States came as the two sides sought closer ties following the first inter-Korean summits in June 2000.

During his visit to Washington, Mr. Jo met with President Bill Clinton and delivered a letter from leader Kim Jong-il. Mr. Jo also met with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Photo: Getty

Mr. Jo said that improved relations “will be good for both countries and for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula as well as the entire Northeast Asia region.”

Three weeks later, Ms. Albright made a return visit to Pyongyang to arrange a trip to North Korea for President Clinton. Some critics in the United States at the time suspected that President Clinton was trying to make a diplomatic mark in his final months in office.

During Ms. Albright's visit to Pyongyang, Chairman Kim Jong-il took the diplomat to a performance that included a mosaic of a missile being launched into the sky.

“That was our last missile,” Kim Jong-il told Secretary of State Albright at the time, referring to the intermediate-range ballistic missile that North Korea had launched over Japanese territory two years earlier, an event that stunned the region.

However, US-North Korea relations quickly turned cold after President George W. Bush took office in January 2001 and took a tough stance on North Korea.

The nuclear standoff worsened in 2002 when the Bush administration accused North Korea of ​​secretly running a uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 disarmament agreement.

Bill Clinton eventually visited North Korea, but as former US President, in 2009 to persuade the country to release two American journalists previously imprisoned by Pyongyang.