Soeul : South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un committed in their surprise meeting to sitting down with American President Donald Trump and to a “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“The Korean leaders’ second summit in a month saw bear hugs and broad smiles, but their quickly arranged meeting on Saturday appears to highlight a sense of urgency on both sides of the world’s most heavily armed border.
The Koreas’ talks, which Moon said Kim requested, capped a whirlwind 24 hours of diplomatic back-and-forth. They allowed Moon to push for a US-North Korean summit that he sees as the best way to ease animosity that had some fearing a war last year, reports AP.
Kim may see the sit-down with Trump as necessary to easing pressure from crushing sanctions and to winning security assurances in a region surrounded by enemies.
Moon told on Sunday that Kim “again made clear his commitment to a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” and that he told the South Korean leader he’s willing to cooperate to end confrontation and work toward peace for the sake of the successful North Korea-US summit.
Moon said he told Kim that Trump has a “firm resolve” to end hostile relations with North Korea and initiate economic cooperation if Kim implements “complete denuclearisation.”
“What Kim is unclear about is that he has concerns about whether his country can surely trust the United States over its promise to end hostile relations (with North Korea) and provide a security guarantee if they do denuclearisation,” Moon said. “During the South Korea-US summit, President Trump said the US is willing to clearly put an end to hostile relations (between the US and North Korea) and help (the North) achieve economic prosperity if North Korea conducts denuclearisation,” he said.
Moon said North Korea and the United States will soon start working-level talks to prepare for the Kim-Trump summit. He said he expects the talks to go smoothly because Pyongyang and Washington both know what they want from each other.
Kim, in a telling line from a dispatch issued by the North’s state-run news service earlier Sunday, “expressed his fixed will on the historic (North Korea)-US summit talks.”
Date and location hasn’t changed, says Trump
Washington: US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he is still looking at a summit on June 12 in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and things are moving “very nicely” towards the meeting.
“We’re looking at June 12 in Singapore. That hasn’t changed. It’s moving along pretty well, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with a US prisoner freed by Venezuela.