Washington (CNN) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he and his newly announced special representative to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will be traveling to Pyongyang next week. 
 
 It will be Pompeo's fourth trip to Pyongyang, but, while officials hope he will have the opportunity to engage directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said later on Thursday there "are no plans for a meeting" with Kim on the trip. 
 
 Kim snubbed Pompeo during the last round of meetings in North Korea early last month, which sources told CNN went "as badly as it could have gone." 
 
 Pompeo announced the hiring of Biegun at the State Department on Thursday. He's a former auto executive at Ford Motor Co. and a former senior staff member to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in the George W. Bush administration who was rumored to be a possible candidate to replace former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. 
 
 New US special representative to North Korea Steve Biegun speaks after being named by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department on August 23, 2018. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP) 
 
 Biegun assumes the role as special envoy to North Korea at a time when talks between the two countries appear to have stalled over the issue of denuclearization. 
 
 Read More ||||| Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit North Korea during a broader swing through Asia lasting Saturday through Monday, the State Department announced Tuesday. | Cliff Owen/AP Photo Foreign Policy Pompeo, Kim Jong Un set Sunday meeting in North Korea While there, Pompeo is expected to help plan for a second summit between Trump and Kim. 
 
 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to meet Sunday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, part of his efforts to reinvigorate nuclear talks between the two countries. 
 
 While there, Pompeo is also expected to help plan for a second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The chief U.S. diplomat will visit North Korea during a broader swing through Asia lasting Saturday through Monday, the State Department announced Tuesday. He will also visit Japan, South Korea and China. 
 
 It will be Pompeo's fourth visit to largely isolated North Korea, whose nuclear weapons arsenal is considered a major threat to the United States. The two sides have been slowly trying to flesh out Kim's vague commitment to denuclearization, made when he met with Trump in June. 
 
 The last time Pompeo visited Pyongyang, in July, Kim stood him up; North Korea also issued a sharply critical statement of how the visit had gone. 
 
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 Pompeo was planning to visit North Korea in August. But Trump decided to call off the trip, suggesting that Chinese interference was undermining the nuclear talks. 
 
 More recently, there have been mixed messages from both sides about the status of the discussions that the U.S. hopes will end North Korea’s nuclear program. 
 
 Analysts say, however, North Korea has not taken any meaningful steps that show it is serious about abandoning its nuclear weapons. 
 
 At a rally in West Virginia this past Saturday, Trump said he and Kim “fell in love” during their June summit. The president also spoke warmly of the “beautiful letters” the North Korean leader has sent him. 
 
 "I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth," Trump said. "And then we fell in love, OK? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” ||||| This article is over 2 months old 
 
 State department says denuclearization visit ‘shows forward progress and momentum’ as Pompeo returns to Pyongyang 
 
 Mike Pompeo to visit North Korea for further talks with Kim Jong-un 
 
 Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, will travel to Pyongyang on Saturday to try to further denuclearization talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the state department has announced. 
 
 Pompeo will also travel to Japan, South Korea and China between 6 and 8 October, US state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Tuesday. 
 
 North Korea will not abandon nuclear weapons if it cannot trust US – minister Read more 
 
 “I think it shows forward progress and momentum that the secretary is making his fourth trip back in less than a year,” Nauert said. “Of course, we have quite a ways to go but we look forward to the next steps in this conversation,” she added. 
 
 Pompeo’s visit comes ahead of a planned second summit between Kim and Donald Trump. The invitation to return to Pyongyang to discuss North Korean denuclearization efforts was made during a meeting with North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho amid UN sessions last week. 
 
 Nauert said the meetings in Japan, South Korea and China were intended to brief counterparts on the talks in Pyongyang. 
 
 Kim has committed to give up his country’s nuclear weapons although his actions have fallen short of Washington’s demands for a complete inventory of North Korea’s weapons programs and irreversible steps to give up a nuclear arsenal that potentially threatens the United States.
– Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced plans to travel to North Korea with newly hired special envoy Stephen Biegun next week. On Friday, however, President Trump said he asked Pompeo to cancel the trip. The reason for what the New York Times calls the "abrupt cancelation": "I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the president tweeted, adding that he does not think China is helping with the denuclearization process "because of our much tougher trading stance." Pompeo "looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our trading relationship with China is resolved," continues Trump. It would have been Pompeo's fourth trip to Pyongyang, per CNN. During a July trip, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "snubbed" the secretary of state and the visit went "as badly as it could have gone," sources told the network.