US, Pyongyang envoys ‘narrow differences’: report

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - Crucial talks between the U.S. and North Korean envoys entered fifth day on Monday ahead of their leaders’ summit in Vietnamese capital Hanoi, a media report said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be travelling to Hanoi for second summit in less than a year to discuss denuclearization of Korean peninsula and lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang.

North Korea’s special representative for U.S. affairs Kim Hyok-chol is holding parleys with his U.S. counterpart Stephen Biegun in Hanoi since last Thursday, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Quoting a top diplomatic sources, the agency said the two sides have “made some headway in the preliminary negotiations on the agenda”.

“The two sides have been in in-depth negotiations,” Yonhap said, adding: “They are engaged in far more serious discussions than (those prior to) the first summit held in Singapore last year. Differences are being narrowed."

The report said that the meetings discussed as to how the sides “should exchange denuclearization measures and corresponding rewards”.

“The comments suggested the possibility of progress in talks on the issue of dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear complex, the core element of North Korea's decades-long nuclear development,” the report added.

Trump and Kim are expected to begin their Hanoi summit with a joint dinner on Wednesday, Yonhap said quoting multiple sources.

“Hanoi Opera House is one of the possible venues for the banquet because Kim Chang-son, a senior North Korean official in charge of logistical details of the leader's trip, recently visited the facility together with U.S. officials,” it added.

In a historic breakthrough last June, Trump and Kim held their first historic summit in Singapore aimed at denuclearization of Korean peninsula while Pyongyang is seeking relief from UN sanctions which are in place since 2006 after North Korea unilaterally launched its nuclear program.