The delay on the release of details including the venue for the summit prompted some to fear the plans had stalled.
Helping to alleviate that growing concern is the release of detainees by the regime.
The U.S. secretary of state's return home from his visit to Pyongyang with the American citizens, signalled the two sides are back on track again.
Lee Ji-won help us dissect how this gesture could impact the historic meeting.


On top of having fine tuned the details for the historic first meeting between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, the release of three American detainees made U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Pyongyang all the more satisfactory for Washington.
Some experts on North Korea say, this was part of Kim Jong-un's efforts to show his sincerity towards the much anticipated summit.

"With the summit ahead, this shows Kim's willingness to maintain a mood of reconciliation and show that he's determined to hold the meeting. And we can say that could possibly translate into his sincerity in denuclearizing."

Though the expert said the release of the detainees would not have been used as a card to negotiate the lifting of economic sanctions or levels of denuclearization, as it is not that much of a bargaining chip,... he said he does think the North could expect something in return.

"There could have been some kind of exchange between the release of detainees and the possibility of the U.S. raising human rights issues in North Korea. The release could be a sign Kim is sending to Trump, asking him *not* to raise human rights problems too strongly during the summit."

But others have contrasting views.

"The fact that the detainees had a hard time inside North Korea , I think would make President Trump raise the issue of human rights to deal with all this kind of situations. Congressmen and a lot of people are still talking about this, there are still a lot of demonstrations. So I think this should be one of the important agenda in the summit."

Human rights is one of the most sensitive issues to North Korea. It has shown strong rhetoric and hostility whenever it has been rebuked on the matter.
Just last week, North Korea's state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, published a commentary criticizing the U.S. as the greatest offender of human rights issues.
This comes as the U.S. publication "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017" labeled North Korea and a number of countries including China and Russia as "morally reprehensible".

But despite such reactions from the North, the U.S. has continued to press the issue, with the U.S. State Department issuing a scathing condemnation of Pyongyang's human rights violations last week.

While some experts point to the human rights issue as one of the reasons for the delay in finalizing and announcing the details of the summit, they say the latest development between North Korea and the U.S. could mean the two have reached an agreement on t