SEOUL • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is ready to accept the dismantlement and inspection of a high-profile nuclear plant, a South Korean presidential adviser has said, suggesting a possible point of compromise in upcoming talks with US President Donald Trump.
Mr Moon Chung-in, a special adviser for foreign affairs and national security, said in an interview last Friday that the verified destruction of the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex was an achievable goal during Mr Trump's planned Feb 27-28 summit with Mr Kim.
The North Korean leader will arrive in Vietnam on Feb 25, three sources with knowledge of his schedule told Reuters yesterday. Mr Trump and Mr Kim are to meet in Hanoi, following their historic first meeting in Singapore last June.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Thursday said Washington aims to "get as far down the road as we can" at the summit.
Mr Kim will meet Vietnamese officials when he arrives in Hanoi, said the sources, who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity and secrecy surrounding the movements of the North's leader. He will also visit the Vietnamese manufacturing base of Bac Ninh and the industrial port town of Hai Phong.
Vietnam's President and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Mr Nguyen Phu Trong, will meet Mr Kim, according to one of the sources.
A Reuters witness saw Mr Kim's de facto chief of staff Kim Chang Son in Hanoi yesterday, visiting a government guesthouse and the Metropole and Melia hotels in the centre of the capital.
"Kim Jong Un said 'yes' and will accept verification," Mr Moon told Bloomberg in Seoul on Friday.
He said it was his "understanding" that South Korean President Moon Jae-in got Mr Kim's personal assurance on that when they met in Pyongyang in September.
"I hope President Trump can nail it down that verification should be part of the permanent dismantling of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon."
While Mr Kim expressed a willingness to accept the "permanent dismantlement" of Yongbyon during the South Korean leader's visit, his public statements stopped short of committing to "verification", which would allow inspectors insight into his weapons capabilities.
Mr Moon Chung-in, who participated in the trip, declined to say where he got the information. He is not related to the President.
Yongbyon used to be the crown jewel of North Korea's nuclear arms programme, with its reactor and reprocessing plant turning out enough plutonium for about one bomb a year. That role has shrunk since North Korea switched to uranium enrichment for the bulk of its fissile material, carrying out the work in secret, according to anti-proliferation experts.
Mr Moon Chung-in said the US should agree to allow economic projects between the two Koreas to proceed in exchange for inspections of Yongbyon - something the US has so far been reluctant to do.
Mr Kim has railed against the international sanctions regime choking his moribund economy and called for resuming the projects, including an industrial park and a mountain resort.
"Those will be doable," Mr Moon Chung-in said. Such an exchange would advance talks, "without undermining the overall sanctions regime by the UN Security Council, yet giving some kind of incentives to North Korea in a way the US can come up with some sort of compromise", he added.
BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
