President Trump will host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House next week for a meeting expected to center on clarifying and…
President Trump will host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House next week for a meeting expected to center on clarifying and aligning the expectations that Washington and Seoul have for Mr. Trump’s upcoming summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
The Moon visit Tuesday comes amid uncertainty over the planned June 12 summit after North Korea threatened this week to pull out amid anger over National Security Advisor John R. Bolton’s claims that Washington seeks a quick, verifiable, “Libya model” denuclearization from Pyongyang.
President Trump walked back Mr. Bolton’s assertions Thursday, telling reporters “the Libyan model isn’t a model that we have at all when we’re thinking of North Korea,” and stressing that if Mr. Kim is serious about abandoning his nuclear program, Washington will provide the North Korean leader’s regime with “protections.”
While those comments hang in the backdrop, national security sources say the White House is scrambling behind-the-scenes to nail down exactly what its expectations are for the highly-anticipated summit with Mr. Kim in Singapore.
That’s where President Moon comes in, says Hak-Soon Paik, the head North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank.
