DPRK official heads for US: report
Xinhua
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A senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) headed for the United States for working-level talks, Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday.

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Senior DPRK official Kim Yong Chol is headed to the United States presumably for talks with the U.S. side on a possible summit between DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, it said.

The trip is part of a flurry of diplomacy as preparations gather pace for the on-again, off-again summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. 

US negotiators, headed by Washington's current ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, met with North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas on Sunday. 

The State Department said a separate team of White House officials has also headed to Singapore to sort out logistics for the historic meeting. 

Chung Sung-yoon, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Kim Yong Chol would be the most senior North Korean official to step onto US soil since Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok met President Bill Clinton in 2000. 

(With input from AFP)