Singular $$ \mathcal{R}$$ -Matrices and Drinfeld's Comultiplication

We compute the $\mathcal{R}$ -matrix which intertwines two dimensional evaluation representations with Drinfeld comultiplication for ${\text{U}}_q \left( {\widehat{{\text{sl}}}_{\text{2}} } \right)$ . This $\mathcal{R}$ -matrix contains terms proportional to the δ-function. We construct the algebra $A\left( \mathcal{R} \right)$ generated by the elements of the matrices L^±(z) with relations determined by $\mathcal{R}$ . In the category of highest-weight representations, there is a Hopf algebra isomorphism between $A\left( \mathcal{R} \right)$ and an extension $\overline {\text{U}} _q \left( {\widehat{{\text{sl}}}_{\text{2}} } \right)$ of Drinfeld's algebra.