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Kim Myong-gil

North Korea’s chief envoy to its working-level denuclearization talks with the US will reportedly be Kim Myong-gil, a member of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry. Kim took part in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program and served as the North’s ambassador to Vietnam, and he will be the new counterpart to US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun.

During the North Korea-US summit that took place at Panmunjom on June 30, the North Koreans provided the Americans with a new list of members on their working-level negotiating team, and the Trump administration has concluded that Kim Myong-gil is the North’s new envoy to the working-level negotiations, a diplomatic source said on July 4. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier, “I don’t know exactly who from the foreign ministry [will be Biegun’s counterpart], but it’s likely to be one of a couple people.”

Kim Myong-gil participated in the Six-Party Talks between 2006 and 2009 as the deputy ambassador to North Korea’s delegation to the UN. A former member of the Arms Reduction and Peace Institution, under the Foreign Ministry, Kim is regarded as being highly knowledgeable about the US. When Jo Myong-rok, first vice-chairman of North Korea’s National Defence Commission, visited the US in October 2000 as a special envoy from Kim Jong-il, Kim Myong-gil joined the delegation as a councillor at the North Korean delegation to the UN. In 2007, Kim reportedly held top-secret talks in New York with Christopher Hill, then assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the US State Department. Those talks helped resolve the issue of remitting US$25 million in North Korean funds at Banco Delta Asia Bank in Macao.

Kim Myong-gil served as North Korea’s ambassador to Vietnam for three years and eight months, from August 2015 to April 2019. As the local ambassador, Kim stayed close to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during the second North Korea-US summit, which took place on Feb. 27–28 in Hanoi, and carefully observed the entire process. The first thing that Kim did upon arriving in Hanoi was visit the North Korean embassy.

“Kim Myong-gil has experience dealing with American issues and has a deep understanding of them. It would be a good decision to make him Biegun’s counterpart in the negotiations,” said Ken Gause, a North Korean expert who is the director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, an American research and analysis organization, during an interview with Radio Free Asia on Thursday.

As a consequence, the North Korea-US negotiations are likely to be supervised at the highest level by Pompeo for the US and by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, with the working-level talks led by Biegun and Kim Myong-gil. While North Korean Special Representative for US Affairs Kim Hyok-chol took part in the working-level negotiations in January and February, he hasn’t appeared at a public event since the Hanoi summit concluded with no deal. Pompeo has said that the working-level talks could begin around the middle of this month, suggesting that the final lineup of the two countries’ negotiators will be unveiled at that point.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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