A senior North Korean ruling party official and a close aide to leader Kim Jong Un is heading to the United States to help prepare for an envisioned U.S.-North Korean summit, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday.

"We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York," Trump wrote in a Twitter post.

Trump also hailed the "solid response" to his letter, without elaborating.

(Kim Yong Chol in Seoul in February 2018)

Earlier Tuesday, Kim, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and head of its department in charge of relations with South Korea, arrived in Beijing on a flight from Pyongyang, an informed source in the Chinese capital said.

He was accompanied by other North Korean officials including Choe Kang Il, deputy director general for North American affairs at the country's Foreign Ministry, the source said.

Kim, who held talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Pyongyang earlier this month, is believed to be leading arrangements for the planned summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, which Trump canceled last Thursday before quickly reviving hopes of holding it as originally scheduled in Singapore on June 12.

The Dong-A Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, reported Tuesday that Pompeo may visit Pyongyang by the end of this week.

U.S. and North Korean officials have held working-level talks since Sunday, at the border village of Panmunjeom in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, to prepare for the summit.