(Photo: CGTN)
The next Trump-Kim summit will likely take place after October, said Mike Pompeo, the United States secretary of state, in an interview with CBS on Wednesday.
"We're working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon," Pompeo noted.
"It may happen in October, but more likely sometime after that."
US President Donald Trump later on Wednesday also said the timing and location of his next meeting with Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Un would be announced in the "very near future."
Trump, speaking to reporters as he was entering the United Nations, said: "I'll be meeting with Chairman Kim in the very near future. It'll be announced. We're having a press conference today. We'll start talking about that. But we'll be announcing where and when in the very near future."
Asked what the DPRK had to do before his next meeting with Kim, Trump said, the two had made "a tremendous amount of progress" since last year. "They're denuclearizing North Korea (DPRK). We have a wonderful relationship going between our country and them," he said.
On Tuesday, Republic of Korea (ROK) President Moon Jae-in also confirmed in an interview with Fox News that Kim was hoping to meet with Trump and said the second US-DPRK summit could take place before the end of this year but likely in a different place.
Moon said Kim had told him during last week's summit that the "corresponding measures" he was seeking were security guarantees Trump pledged in Singapore and moves toward normalization of relations with Washington.
"I believe that setting a timetable for all these measures is a task for the second US-North Korea (DPRK) summit," Moon said.
Speaking at the UN on Monday, Trump also announced a second summit with the Kim is likely to take place "quite soon."
"As you know, Kim Jong Un wrote a letter – a beautiful letter – and asked me for a second meeting and we will be doing that. Pompeo will work that out in the immediate future,” he said.
Pompeo has proposed a meeting with the DPRK's Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in New York City where they are both scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
Ri, however, did not reply when asked when he would meet Pompeo in New York.
At the conclusion of the historic first Trump-Kim summit in June in Singapore, the two sides issued a joint statement, pledging to work towards the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula
However, US-DPRK talks have been stuck in an impasse due to their differences over the scale of denuclearization, US sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration.