We start with the on-off summit... that seems to be back on again.
The White House says a "pre-advance" team is en route to Singapore to check up on the logistics of a possible North Korea-U.S. summit next month,... this on top of the summit-preparation talks at the inter-Korean border.
And while the hard work goes on behind-the-scenes,... U.S. President Donald Trump has tweeted about the possible summit,... expressing a renewed sense of optimism about the chance for a breakthrough.
Lee Seung-jae reports.
The U.S. State Department has confirmed that U.S. officials have crossed the inter-Korean border into North Korea,... to continue preparations for a potentially historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
According to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert,... the two sides are holdings talks on the northern side of the truce village of Panmunjom.
The move came just a day after President Moon Jae-in and Kim held a surprise second summit on the northern side of Panmunjom, where Kim reaffirmed his willingness to denuclearize and hold a summit with President Trump.
According to The Washington Post,... leading the U.S. team for the working-level talks is Sung Kim,... a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and a former nuclear negotiator.
The former envoy and his team crossed the inter-Korean border on Sunday to meet with Choe Son-hui , North Korea's vice foreign minister, the official partly responsible for prompting Trump last Thursday to announce the cancellation of his summit with Kim, which was scheduled for June 12th in Singapore.
The American delegation also includes Allison Hooker, a director for Korea on the White House National Security Council,... and a Pentagon official.
Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense for East Asia,.. is reported to be in Seoul,... but it could not confirmed whether he's the Pentagon official on the delegation.
The U.S. team travelled to Tongilgak, a building inside Panmunjom, to talk about the details of the potential Kim-Trump summit,... as Washington wants to see Pyongyang commit to a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program.
The meeting between the two sides is expected to continue until Tuesday.
Watchers say the two sides are on the right track again,... as North Korea issued a conciliatory statement that it was still ready to talk with the U.S. at any time,... while President Trump tweeted early Monday Korea time to say he truly believes North Korea has "brilliant potential" and will be a great economic and financial nation one day.
Lee Seung-jae, Arirang News
