President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday left for the United States for a fresh summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. 

According to the presidential office, Moon will begin his visit by meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, followed by a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday morning, local time.

Moon will then hold one-on-one and extended summit meetings with Trump over lunch for about two hours. Moon will return to Seoul late Friday. 

During his first sit-down with Trump since the collapse of the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, Moon is expected to try and mediate between Washington’s “big deal” approach and Pyongyang’s “phased deal” approach. 

It is likely that he will seek to induce more flexibility from Washington by pushing for a step-by-step approach of "early harvests" and "phased rewards" to further encourage Pyongyang.

Kim Hyun-chong, deputy director of the National Security Office, said he expected the upcoming Moon-Trump summit will serve as an opportunity to explore specific ways to realize complete denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. 

The summit will mark the seventh between the two leaders since Moon took office in May 2017.