US envoy Beigun arrives in Pyongyang

The US envoy for North Korea is in Pyongyang for talks, paving the way for a second leadership summit.

Biegun arrived just as US President Donald Trump confirmed he would meet North Korea's Kim Jong-un in Vietnam on 27 February.

“As part of bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean peninsula,” Trump said in his State of the Union address in Washington on Tuesday.

“Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong-un is a good one. And Chairman Kim and I will meet again on February 27 and 28 in Vietnam.”

Trump confirmed the talks would take place after North Korea released American hostages, halted nuclear testing and did not launch a missile in over 15 months.

The meeting would be Trump’s second summit with Kim over the last year and the first time a US president has twice met the leader of the authoritarian regime.

The two leaders will build on the vague denuclearisation commitments they made when they met in Singapore last June.

Both sides said they were committed to denuclearisation, but with no details of how this would be carried out or verified.

Biegun is travelling to Pyongyang after holding talks with officials in South Korea, and has said he wants to achieve some "concrete deliverables".

The US state department has said his visit will "advance further progress on the commitments the president and Chairman Kim made in Singapore".

The US wants North Korea to make a full declaration of all its nuclear weapons facilities and commit to destroying them, under international supervision - something North Korea has never said it will do.

In a speech at Stamford University last week, Biegun said the US would not agree to lift sanctions until this happens, but he indicated it could provide assistance in other ways, saying: "We did not say we will not do anything until you do everything."

He also said Kim Jong-un had previously committed to "the dismantlement and destruction" of all North Korea's plutonium and uranium facilities, which provide the material for nuclear weapons.