Kim Yong Chol: North Korean leader's right-hand man and ex-spy chief

US President Donald Trump announced that a senior North Korean official is headed to New York to discuss an upcoming summit,the latest indication that an on-again-off-again meeting between Trump and North Korea's leader may go ahead next month.

Kim Yong Chol, 72, will be the most senior North Korean official to meet top officials for talks in the United States since Jo Myong Rok, a marshal, met then-President Bill Clinton at the White House in 2000.

Kim Jong Chol has often be described as Supreme leader Kin Jong Un's "right-hand man" and also coordinated the North Korean president's two meetings with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in April and May. He and Kim Jong Un's sister were the only North Korean officials to attend the first inter-Korean summit in April alongside the North Korean leader.

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He was alsoamong a small and select group of North Korean officials whoaccompanied Kim Jong Unto the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean peninsulato meet twicewith South Korean President Moon Jae In.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently informed that Kim would be meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York, making him the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the US since 2000 when Jo Myong Rok, the late vice marshal, met with then-President Bill Clinton in Washington.

Kim has previously been a liaison officer with the United Nations, a border guard in the Korean demilitarised zone and was also a part of the team which carried out the breakthrough negotiations with the South Koreans in the early 1990s. Over the past decade, he was promoted to four-star general and made the head of the main North Korean intelligence service, known as the reconnaissance general bureau (RGB).

He is the current vice-chairman of the ruling Worker's party and was also one of the delegations from North Korea for the Winter Olympics closing ceremony.

He later served as the director of the General Reconnaissance Bureau, tasked with cyber-warfare and gathering foreign intelligence, from 2009 to 2016.

During his time as North Korea's military intelligence chief, Kim was accused of being responsible for the attacks on the South Korea warship Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island in 2010 in which 46 sailors had died.

He also allegedly had a hand in North Korea’s deadly shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island six months later.

He is also linked to the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures in 2014 and led the country's delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony in South Korea's Pyeongchang earlier this year.

The United States and South Korea blacklisted Kim Yong Chol for supporting the North's nuclear and missile programmes in 2010 and 2016, respectively, so a visit to the United States would indicate the USgovernment has granted him a waiver.

North Korea denied any involvement in both attacks.