North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, who handles nuclear weapons issues and negotiations with the United States, arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a two-country trip that will also take her to Russia.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported later in a short dispatch that a delegation including Choe left to attend negotiations between North Korea and China in Beijing, negotiations between North Korea and Russia in Moscow as well as negotiations involving all three countries.

Choe is expected to seek support from China and Russia, both traditional allies of North Korea, as Pyongyang envisions advancing denuclearization talks with Washington.

Choe is considered a counterpart to Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for North Korea, in working-level talks proposed by the United States.

Choe's visit comes as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to visit Pyongyang on Sunday with Biegun for denuclearization talks with leader Kim Jong Un.

There is some speculation that working-level negotiations will not take place during Pompeo's visit given the fact that Choi left just prior to his arrival.

Pompeo is expected to lay the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit that U.S. President Donald Trump said last week would be held "in the not too distant future."

Pompeo canceled a planned trip to Pyongyang in late August due to a lack of credible action by North Korea, despite Kim pledging to work toward "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a U.S.-North Korean summit in Singapore in June.

Choe is a veteran diplomat who was once involved in now-stalled multilateral talks on North Korea's denuclearization and represented her country in negotiations with the United States.

In August, Choe held talks with U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris at the Panmunjeom border village in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who was in Beijing from Monday after attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, on Thursday arrived back in North Korea by air. It is not clear whom he met with while in the Chinese capital.

Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong Kuk received him at Pyongyang's airport.