Trump appoints Harrison as deputy White House chief of staff for 'involvement in North Korea-US summit'

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has appointed another person who was practically involved in the U.S.-North Korea summit as a White House staff member during the first term.

Trump's transition team announced in a press release on the 4th local time that it would appoint William Bo Harrison as presidential aide and chief of staff for the White House's operations department (副).

The transition team says Harrison was tasked with coordinating and executing the president's official travel schedule, including dozens of foreign visits, during Trump's first term and has led U.S. delegations from countries around the world, including North Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Harrison also added that "every historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un played an important role in planning."

Trump held the first and second summits and impromptu meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June 2018, Hanoi in Vietnam in February 2019, and Panmunjom in June 2019, respectively.

Trump's emphasis on Harrison's involvement in the U.S.-North Korea summit by appointing him as a White House staffer seems to be a sign of his willingness to pursue summit diplomacy with North Korea again depending on the situation since taking office.

Earlier on November 22 last year, Trump announced that he would appoint Alex Wong, who served as the representative of the Special Department for North Korea (副) during Trump's first term and was deeply involved in the North Korea-US summit, as the senior deputy adviser to the National Security Council.

At the time of the announcement, Trump also specially introduced, "He helped negotiate my summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un."

In addition, Trump announced on the 14th of last month that he would appoint his "diplomatic envoy" Richard Grinnell as the "Presidential Envoy for Special Missions" and that Grinnell would take on "the hottest issues in the world, including Venezuela and North Korea."