US, N. Korea to hold talks on 2nd Trump-Kim summit – reports

North Korea’s lead negotiator in nuclear diplomacy with the US is expected to hold talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and could also meet President Donald Trump on Friday. The talks are aimed at clearing the way for a second US-North Korea summit, Reuters reports. Kim Yong-chol arrived in Washington on Thursday evening for his first visit since he came last June ahead of a meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Efforts made since then to get Pyongyang to denuclearize appear to have stalled. Hours before Kim Yong-chol’s arrival, Trump – who declared after the Singapore summit that the nuclear threat posed by Pyongyang was over – unveiled a revamped US missile defense strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and “extraordinary threat.”