The US president, Donald Trump, said a meeting with Kim Jong Un could happen over the next three to four weeks, speaking at a rally in Michigan.
“I think we will have a meeting over the next three or four weeks,” he stated “It’s going be a very important meeting, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But we’ll see how it goes. I may go in, it may not work out, I leave.”
The exact date hasn’t been set yet, and the location of the summit has been a subject of many rumors, including Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, and even Mongolia.
Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, met with Kim Jong Un recently and said that they had a good conversation, praising Kim’s willingness to negotiate and his preparedness for the meeting.
“We had an extensive conversation on the hardest issues that face our two countries,” Pompeo said. “I had a clear mission statement from President Trump. When I left Kim Jong-un understood the mission exactly as I described it today.”
The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has been promoted as a goal on Friday’s meeting between Kim and his southern counterpart Moon Jae-in in the Demilitarized Zone. Kim became the first North Korean leader to visit South Korea since the end of the war in 1953. The meeting went in a cordial atmosphere, with both presidents joking and laughing. One of the promises made was that a formal peace treaty would soon replace a truce that has ended the Korean War. It was even reported widely in the North Korea’s press, which is usually very tight-lipped when informing its citizens of any international development that doesn’t represent their country in the best light. Some experts interpret this in a way that Pyongyang is open to the idea of getting rid of its nuclear arsenal.
Trump has spoken with Moon Jae-in on the subjects and both presidents agreed that “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” is vital for the future of North Korea. Trump also claimed credit for the meeting, saying that “I had one of the fake news groups this morning. They were saying, ‘what do you think President Trump had to do with it? I’ll tell you what. Like, how about everything?”
The US defense secretary, James Mattis also talked to his colleague from South Korea and assured him that America would defend its ally “using the full spectrum of US capabilities.”
President Trump also had a phone call with the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and appraised him of the situation.
Source: theguardian.com
