Two top Trump administration officials dealing with U.S.-North Korea relations will travel to Seoul and Tokyo on Monday, NK News has learned.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an administration official working on North Korea policy confirmed earlier South Korean media reporting that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will pay a visit to South Korea next week.

He will be joined by Allison Hooker, the National Security Council’s senior director for Asia, the source revealed. 

Both have played senior roles in U.S.-DPRK diplomacy in recent years, most notably in working-level talks ahead of three meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korea is yet to formally confirm the plans, and a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs declined to comment on the record.

But meetings next week are likely to center around a recent escalation, and subsequent de-escalation, of tensions between the two Koreas last month — tensions which at their height saw North Korea demolish an inter-Korean liaison office in the border city of Kaesong. 

The trip will also come amid suggestions — most notably from South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday — that the U.S. and North Korea could hold another summit ahead of November’s Presidential elections.

Secretary Biegun earlier this week, however, said that while the door remained open to diplomacy with North Korea, it was “hard to envision circumstances where we could do an in-person, international summit.”

In that context, one former U.S. diplomat dealing with North Korea issues told NK News this week’s visit could instead focus on planning for upcoming multilateral summit and to discuss broader alliance issues.

“This very well could be primarily a coordination trip ahead of the G7 where Biegun will continue to toe the administration line on North Korea while pressing Seoul on cost sharing, Korea-Japan relations, and other broader priorities,” Mintaro Oba, also a contributing analyst to NK News’s sister site NK Pro, said.

“Biegun may also want to tighten up coordination with Seoul in the wake of recent inter-Korean tensions and increasing South Korean interest in moving inter-Korean engagement forward, perhaps more than Washington is comfortable.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham