U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that his summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un would go ahead as originally planned on June 12 in Singapore, after unprecedented Oval Office talks with a top envoy from Pyongyang.
While admitting that dealing with North Korea was “going to be a process,” Mr. Trump said he believed that process would ultimately be “successful.”
He said the letter from Mr. Kim, hand-delivered by his right-hand man Kim Yong-chol, was “very nice” and “very interesting,” without immediately disclosing its contents.
Kim Yong-chol, vice-chairman of North Korea’s ruling party executive and a veteran regime insider met with the U.S. President at the White House on Friday to deliver the letter. .
He arrived for the meeting accompanied by the senior U.S. officials who have overseen an extraordinary diplomatic opening.
Both sides have committed themselves to the “denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula, but it is far from clear if Mr. Trump’s mission to secure Pyongyang’s complete disarmament can be aligned with Mr. Kim’s quest to win international respect and protection.
On Thursday, after talks with Kim Yong-chol in New York, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed confidence that the process was moving in the right direction, but warned that the North’s young leader must be bold enough to make a “strategic shift” in understanding that he will be safer without nuclear weapons.
High-level talks
The flurry of diplomacy has also seen a rapprochement on the Korean peninsula, with the two Koreas holding high-level talks on Friday at the border truce village of Panmunjom to discuss their ongoing efforts to improve ties.
The two Koreas agreed to hold more meetings throughout this month to carry out the agreements reached between their leaders at the April summit, according to a joint statement released following Friday’s talks.
A round of general-level military talks will be held on June 14 and a Red Cross meeting to plan a reunion for war-separated families is scheduled for June 22.
