Summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un back on, Trump says
US President Donald Trump has said his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is back on for June 12.
Speaking after an Oval Office meeting with North Korea's Kim Yong Chol, Mr Trump said he would be making a mistake not to go forward with the on-again, off-again nuclear summit in Singapore.
The president said his meeting with the most senior North Korean to visit the White House in 18 years lasted longer than expected and "went very well".
Mr Trump said his June 12 meeting will be "a beginning".
He added: "The process will begin on June 12 in Singapore."
BREAKING: Amid renewed diplomatic effort for a possible Trump-Kim summit, senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol arrives at the White House for an Oval Office meeting with President Trump. pic.twitter.com/mMSUMhUz37
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 1, 2018
Earlier, Kim Yong Chol was greeted at the White House by chief of staff John Kelly and then whisked into the Oval Office.
He is the most senior North Korean to visit the White House in 18 years, a highly symbolic sign of easing tensions after fears of war escalated amid North Korean nuclear and missile tests last year.
“Our two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship, and it would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste”, Mr Pompeo said in New York after meeting with the envoy.
Mr Pompeo would not say that the summit is a definite go for Singapore on June 12 and could not say if that decision would be made after Mr Trump reads Kim Jong Un’s letter.
However, his comments were the most positive from any US official since the meeting was axed last week after belligerent statements from the North.
Good progress today during our meetings with Kim Yong Chol and his team. #NorthKorea and the world would benefit greatly from the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. pic.twitter.com/QfeALSsxGA
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) May 31, 2018
The two countries, eyeing the first summit between the US and the North after six decades of hostility, have also been holding negotiations in Singapore and the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas.
Early on Thursday, Mr Trump told reporters “we are doing very well” with North Korea.
He added there may even need to be a second or third summit meeting to reach a deal on North Korean denuclearisation but still hedged, saying “maybe we’ll have none”.
Kim Yong Chol left his hotel in New York City early on Friday for the trip to Washington in a convoy of vehicles.
Mr Pompeo, who has travelled to North Korea and met Kim Jong Un twice in the past two months, said he believed the country’s leaders are “contemplating a path forward where they can make a strategic shift, one that their country has not been prepared to make before”.
“We will push forward to test the proposition that we can achieve that outcome,” he said.
Kim Jong Un, in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday, complained about the US trying to spread its influence in the region, a comment that may complicate the summit plans.
“As we move to adjust to the political situation in the face of US hegemonism, I am willing to exchange detailed and in-depth opinions with your leadership and hope to do so moving forward,” Mr Kim told Sergey Lavrov.
But there are lingering doubts on whether he will ever fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he may see as his only guarantee of survival in a region surrounded by enemies.
Mr Trump views a summit as a legacy-defining opportunity to make a nuclear deal, but he has left the world guessing since cancelling the meeting last week in an open letter to Mr Kim that complained of the North’s “tremendous anger and open hostility”.
North Korea’s conciliatory response to that letter appears to have put the summit back on track.
