From Seoul, US envoy on way to Pyongyang

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – After holding talks with South Korean officials, the special U.S. envoy on North Korea is flying to Pyongyang to meet his counterpart on Wednesday.

Stephen Biegun had arrived in Seoul on Sunday for talks with his counterparts and is now headed to Pyongyang to meet with his newly appointed counterpart, Kim Hyok-chol, Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

Kim was until recently North Korea's ambassador to Spain.

The top officials will discuss this month's planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un, the report added.

The U.S. and North Korean leaders are holding a second summit later this month to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and lifting sanctions from North Korea.

At their first historic summit last June in Singapore, Trump and Kim agreed to the goals of complete denuclearization, transformation of bilateral relations, and the building of a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Before flying to the Koreas, in a speech at Stanford University last week, Biegun said that Washington was not planning to occupy North Korea but wants complete details of its nuclear programs.