North Korea killed the official who had prepared the summit's failure with Trump

North Korea executed its special envoy to the United States after the collapse of the second summit held last February between leaders Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper reported on Monday.

The Chosun Ilbo He claimed that Kim Hyok Chol, who had prepared the ground for the Hanoi meeting and accompanied him, had been wounded for "betraying the supreme leader" after being "won in the United States" during negotiations leading to at the top.

"Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at Mirim airport with four Foreign Ministry officials at the end of an investigation," the paper said, citing an unidentified source.

Other officials have not been identified.

Asked about the news, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded today that Washington was trying to verify it.

"We have seen the reports, we are doing everything we can to check it, but I have nothing else to add to that today," he told reporters at the press. from a visit to Berlin.

Kim Hyok Chol was the counterpart of US Special Representative Stephen Biegun in preparation for the Hanoi Summit, the capital of Vietnam.

The Ministry of Unification of South Korea, which manages inter-Korean relations, declined to comment on the report.

The newspaper also said that Kim Jong-un's interpreter, Shin Hye Yong, had been sent to a prison camp as a result of an error committed at the summit.

Kim and Trump have left the Vietnamese capital without being able to reach an agreement on the reversal of Pyongyang's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Last month, the Intelligence Committee of the South Korean Parliament declared that Kim Hyok Chol had been censored for his management of the Hanoi summit, although he was recently appointed a member of the State Affairs Committee. , supreme organ. of the government chaired by Kim.