US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday appointed a senior executive with Ford Motor Co. to be his special envoy for North Korea and said the two would visit Pyongyang next week, AP reported.

Pompeo announced that he had chosen Stephen Biegun to handle day-to-day negotiations with the North over dismantling its nuclear weapons program. 

Pompeo said he and Biegun would be travelling to North Korea “to make further diplomatic progress toward our objective” of its full, final and complete denuclearization. Pompeo offered no other details about the trip.