North Korean aides sent to Singapore in diplomatic flurry ahead of summit

Kim Jong Un sent diplomats to Singapore and the US ahead of the historic summit with President Donald Trump scheduled for 12 June.

Kim Chang Son, special envoy for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, arrived on Monday night in Singapore as part of the preparations for the possible summit with Trump, according to a report from Japanese media outfit NHK.

As indicated by diplomatic sources, Kim's adviser had traveled to Singapore via Beijing where he arrived early on Monday.

In parallel, a US delegation, including Joe Hagin, head of operations at the White House, had left Yokota air base in Japan headed for Singapore.

Just last week, the US leader had announced the cancellation of the summit with Kim in Singapore.

However, over the weekend he had reportedly reconsidered his decision, with a US delegation having been dispatched to meet with representatives from North Korean on their own soil with the aim of preparing the groundwork for the meeting.

Both Trump and Kim have expressed a willingness to meet despite their differences with the issue of the North's denuclearization having been put to one side until they met, even after Pyongyang's rejection of Washington's demands to unilaterally abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

At the weekend, Kim met with South Korean President Moon Jae-In in the border town of Panmunjom, where they agreed that the United States-North Korea summit should be held.

Following that, on Monday Moon announced that more talks with Kim might take place ahead of the summit.

Yet the South Korean National Assembly had recently failed to pass a vote in support of the Panmunjom Declaration, the agreement reached on 27 April by Kim and Moon to achieve peace, reconciliation and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.