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Donald Trump says North Korea summit on 12 June is back on Donald Trump says North Korea summit on 12 June is back on
(35 minutes later)
Donald Trump has announced that a 12 June summit with Kim Jong-un will go ahead as planned in Singapore, saying it would mark the beginning of a negotiating process with North Korea that could involve several such meetings.Donald Trump has announced that a 12 June summit with Kim Jong-un will go ahead as planned in Singapore, saying it would mark the beginning of a negotiating process with North Korea that could involve several such meetings.
Trump was speaking to reporters after meeting Kim’s top aide, Kim Yong-chol, in the Oval Office. It had been billed as a brief courtesy visit but it continued for more than an hour and 20 minutes. In a lavish show of hospitality, Trump escorted his visitor, a former spy chief and general who is under US sanctions, outside the White House for more informal talks and to pose for photographs with the North Korean delegation.Trump was speaking to reporters after meeting Kim’s top aide, Kim Yong-chol, in the Oval Office. It had been billed as a brief courtesy visit but it continued for more than an hour and 20 minutes. In a lavish show of hospitality, Trump escorted his visitor, a former spy chief and general who is under US sanctions, outside the White House for more informal talks and to pose for photographs with the North Korean delegation.
Trump also appeared to accept the North Korean position that its denuclearisation would be a drawn-out process, and not an all-in-one surrender of the regime’s nuclear arsenal. Trump also appeared to accept the North Korean position that its denuclearisation would be a drawn-out process, and not an all-in-one surrender of the regime’s nuclear arsenal, Trump officials had previously demanded.
“The big deal will be on June 12,” Trump said. “It’s a process. We are not going to go in and sign something on June 12.” “The big deal will be on June 12,” Trump said. “It’s a process, we’re not go in and sign something on June 12 and we never were. We are going to start a process. And I told them today: take your time. We can go fast, we can go slowly. I think they’d like to see something happen and if we can work something out that will be good.”
He went on: “I’ve never said it happens in one meeting – you’re talking about years of hostility, years of problems, years of hatred between so many different nations. I told them today, take your time we can go fast, we can go slowly.” But in a dramatic downgrading of expectations from the summit, Trump said Singapore meeting would be a “getting-to-know-you meeting, plus”.
But in a dramatic downgrading of expectations from the summit, Trump said the Singapore meeting would be “getting to know you, plus”. Such a meeting, the first ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, has been a longstanding objective of the Pyongyang regime. To achieve it, it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests, but has given no undertakings on the scale or speed of its nuclear disarmament.
The president added that although existing sanctions would stay in place, no new measures would be added, ditching the slogan that has defined his policy towards North Korea up to now. North Korea has entered agreements several times before in which it has promised to disarm, but those agreements all collapsed.
“I don’t want to use the term maximum pressure any more,” Trump said. In his remarks on Friday, Trump said that – although existing sanctions would stay in place – no new measures would be added, ditching the slogan that has defined his policy towards North Korea up to now.
“I don’t want to use the term maximum pressure any more,” Trump said. “We have hundreds of new sanctions ready to go ... but why would I do that when we’re talking so nicely?”
The president said that North Korea’s human rights record was not discussed in the meeting.The president said that North Korea’s human rights record was not discussed in the meeting.
Kim, the first top North Korean official to visit the White House in 18 years, was met outside the West Wing by the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, and the head of the CIA Korea department, Andrew Kim, who ushered the 72-year-old regime veteran into the Oval Office to meet Trump. Kim Yong-chol, the first top North Korean official to visit the White House in 18 years, was met outside the West Wing by the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, and the head of the CIA Korea department, Andrew Kim, who ushered the 72-year-old regime veteran into the Oval Office to meet Trump.
Far from being hustled in through the back door of the White House, Kim was welcomed at the south lawn entrance in front of massed ranks of cameras and escorted to the Oval Office, where the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was waiting with Trump.Far from being hustled in through the back door of the White House, Kim was welcomed at the south lawn entrance in front of massed ranks of cameras and escorted to the Oval Office, where the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was waiting with Trump.
The ceremonial arrival represented a propaganda coup for a regime that has endured decades of isolation.The ceremonial arrival represented a propaganda coup for a regime that has endured decades of isolation.
The content of the letter was not immediately apparent. Trump at one point described it as “interesting” and then claimed not to have opened. it. The Wall Street Journal reported it simply expressed Kim’s interest in going ahead with the Singapore summit, and does not change North Korea’s negotiating positions. The content of the letter was not immediately apparent. Trump at one point described it as “interesting” and then claimed not to have opened it.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and Mike Pence, the vice-president – both hawks on North Korea – did not take part in the meeting and were nowhere to be seen before and after. “I may be in for a big surprise, folks,” he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported it simply expressed Kim’s interest in going ahead with the Singapore summit, and does not change North Korea’s negotiating positions.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and Mike Pence, the vice-president – both hawks on North Korea – did not take part in the meeting and were nowhere to be seen before and after. Trump’s agreement to enter into a drawn-out negotiating process with North Korea, puts a question mark over Bolton’s future in the White House. He has insisted that any US agreement with Pyongyang would have to involve the regime’s unilateral and rapid surrender of its nuclear weapons programme, which Bolton referred to as the “Libyan model”.
The North Korean leader laid his position out during a visit by the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday. Quoted by the state news agency, KCNA, Kim said “the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula will be solved on a stage-by-stage basis” in which each party addressed the interests of the other.The North Korean leader laid his position out during a visit by the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday. Quoted by the state news agency, KCNA, Kim said “the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula will be solved on a stage-by-stage basis” in which each party addressed the interests of the other.
That “stage-by-stage” process involving packages of reciprocal concessions, had been explicitly ruled out by the Trump administration, which has insisted on “complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament” of the North Korean nuclear weapons programme. Vipin Narang, an expert on the North Korean nuclear weapons programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it now appeared that Trump “seems to be ok with a stage-by-stage process”.
However, Trump on Thursday conceded for the first time that the negotiations with Pyongyang might require more than one summit. Pompeo also appeared to lower expectations of what might come out of a summit, after a New York meeting with Kim. “It won’t result in disarmament but a lot of good can still happen,” Narang said.
Their job, Pompeo said, was putting Trump and Kim “in a place where we think there could be real progress made by the two of them meeting”. US officials had previously insisted that the North Koreans would have to be ready to surrender their nuclear arsenal at the meeting.
“The two key words that Secretary Pompeo used were ‘process’ and ‘progress’ … and that is very different from a few weeks ago when he talked about: let’s all do it in one go, “ said Joseph Yun, a former US negotiator with North Korea and now a senior adviser to the US Institute of Peace.
“It does indicate to me clearly that the conversations they have had so far have somewhat narrowed the gap .”
The only other senior North Korean official ever to visit the White House was vice-marshal Jo Myong-rok, who delivered a letter to Bill Clinton from Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il. That peace effort collapsed with the election weeks later of George W Bush, who cut off contacts with Pyongyang.The only other senior North Korean official ever to visit the White House was vice-marshal Jo Myong-rok, who delivered a letter to Bill Clinton from Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il. That peace effort collapsed with the election weeks later of George W Bush, who cut off contacts with Pyongyang.
Kim Jong-unKim Jong-un
Donald TrumpDonald Trump
North KoreaNorth Korea
Mike PompeoMike Pompeo
Asia PacificAsia Pacific
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