SINGAPORE (AP) – The Latest on the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Singapore (all times local): 7:05…
SINGAPORE (AP) – The Latest on the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Singapore (all times local):
7:05 a.m.
President Donald Trump is sitting down with Fox News host Sean Hannity after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Fox News says the interview will take place Tuesday at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island in Singapore. Trump and Kim are set to meet on Sentosa Island on Tuesday morning for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby.
The interview is set to air on Fox’s “Hannity” at 9 p.m. Tuesday on the U. S. East Coast, which is 9 a.m. Wednesday in Singapore.
Fox News says Trump will talk about the meeting with Kim and future relations between the two countries.
Hannity is a friend and confidant of the president and speaks out in support of Trump on his show.
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6:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump says the “haters & losers” are complaining that his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is a “major loss,” but he notes that the U. S. has gotten its three captives returned and that the North’s nuclear missile launches have stopped.
Trump tweeted early Tuesday from Singapore, just hours before his face-to-face with Kim.
He says, “The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U. S., say the haters & losers.” But he says “our hostages” are back home and testing, research and launches have stopped.
He says, “These pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say!”
Critics have argued that Kim has notched a win by getting a sit-down with the U. S. president.
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5:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump says “we will all know soon” whether he can reach a deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to end its nuclear program.
Trump is tweeting hours before the leaders’ historic face-to-face that, “Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly.”
But he says that, “in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!”
Before leaving Washington for Singapore, Trump said his gut instincts will guide him when he gets into the room with Kim.
He told reporters he’ll know almost immediately whether a deal can be made, saying: “I will know, just my touch, my feel. That’s what I do.”
Their meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Singapore time.
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4 a.m.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the U. S. has picked up no indications that North Korea’s military is in a heightened state of alert in the run-up to the Singapore summit.
Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that “All’s quiet” in North Korea.
Mattis is declining to discuss his expectations for President Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
He says he does not expect it to include a negotiation over reducing the number of U. S. troops in South Korea – currently about 28,000. He says that, at least initially, this is a matter between Washington and Seoul.
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1:45 a.m.
For better part of an hour, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will square off one on one, alone but for a pair of translators. That’s raising concerns about the risk of holding such a monumental meeting with barely anyone to bear witness.
Trump and Kim will meet on Singapore’s Sentosa Island for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby.
The huddle will come before a larger meeting and a working lunch attended by top advisers to the president and their North Korean counterparts.
Word of the private meeting unleashed a torrent of criticism on social media from national security veterans who worry the lack of a transcript will create a he-said-he-said showdown that could turn into a major headache for Trump.
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12:40 a.m.
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has arrived in Singapore, hours before President Donald Trump is set to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time.
Rodman emerged from the baggage claim area at Changi airport around midnight Monday. He told reporters he wasn’t sure if he would meet Kim in Singapore.
Last week, Rodman said he would “give whatever support is needed” to his “friends” Trump and Kim.
White House officials have said Rodman will play no official role in the diplomatic negotiations. Trump said last week that Rodman had not been invited to the summit.
He is one of the few westerners to have met the North Korean leader on visits to the capital city Pyongyang.
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11:30 p.m.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging U. S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to seize the opportunity “to support a peaceful, prosperous, secure and verifiably denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”
The U. N. chief is commending the two leaders for pursuing a diplomatic solution and “seeking to break out of the dangerous cycle that created so much concern last year.”
Guterres told reporters Monday ahead of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore that “peace and verifiable denuclearization must remain the clear and shared goal.”
The secretary-general says he wrote to both leaders last month saying “the road ahead will require cooperation, compromise and a common cause.”
He says the U. N. system “stands ready to support this process in every way, including verification if requested by both parties.”
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11:15 p.m.
Former U. S. Defense Secretary William Perry is warning that if President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fail to reach a deal at their Singapore summit, there’s an increased danger for a “catastrophic” military solution.
Perry says, “If it falls apart, it’s probably worse than as if we ever started.”
Perry says he’s hopeful the two leaders will discuss normalization of ties as well as denuclearization to improve the prospect for long-term success of any deal.
He spoke Monday to The Associated Press at a Luxembourg Forum Conference on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe event in Geneva.
Perry also served as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to North Korea and traveled there in 1999 to discuss its nuclear and missile programs.
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11 p.m.
The White House says President Donald Trump plans to visit U. S. military bases in Guam and Hawaii on the return from his historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump is expected to depart Singapore on Tuesday night after his meeting with Kim on Sentosa Island. Before leaving Singapore, the president is scheduled to address the media.
The White House says the president will stop at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday and also travel to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii later in the day.
The president visited the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor last November on his way to Asia.
Trump is expected to return to the White House on Wednesday morning.
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10:30 p.m.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (le dree-AHN) says he will be the first one to applaud U. S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un if they reach a deal on nuclear weapons disarmament of the Korean Peninsula.
Le Drian says that “everything that has to do with disarmament is positive.”
The French foreign minister met Monday with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom in Stockholm. Le Drian cautions “we have been enthusiastic before and it has led to failures.”
Wallstrom hosted talks in March with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Stockholm. She says one should be prepared for both “a fruitful meeting and a failure.”
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9:56 p.m.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is out of his luxurious hotel for a late-night city tour hours ahead of his summit with President Donald Trump.
Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan (Bal-a-krish-nan) says Kim went to the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on Monday night.
The foreign minister posted a photo showing him with Kim at the place on Facebook.
South Korean media says Kim went there with his sister Kim Yo Jong and other top deputies.
Kim is meeting Trump on Tuesday for a historic summit aimed at discussing the future of his nuclear program.
It would be the first summit between a sitting U. S. president and a North Korean leader.
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8:20 p.m.
The White House says in a statement ahead of President Donald Trump’s historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that the talks with North Korea are moving “more quickly than expected.” The White House says Trump now plans to depart Singapore on Tuesday evening ahead of schedule.
The White House says Trump will address the media on Tuesday following his summit with Kim and depart Singapore at approximately 8 p.m. local time for the United States. The president had been expected to leave Singapore on Wednesday morning.
Trump is set to meet with Kim in Singapore on Tuesday morning.
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7:30 p.m.
Seoul says President Donald Trump talked with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (jah-YIHN’) about his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and expressed optimism for a diplomatic breakthrough.
South Korea’s presidential office says Trump filled Moon on the details of the pre-summit negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. The Blue House didn’t elaborate on what Moon was told during the 40 minute telephone call.
The Blue House says Moon told him South Koreans will be praying for a “miraculous result.”
Moon said earlier he hopes the summit will be a “historic milestone” for peace but it will only be the first step in a complex and lengthy process. Moon says the hostility “cannot be solved at once by a single meeting between the leaders.”
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6:25 p.m.
Iran says North Korea should be wary of negotiating with President Donald Trump following his withdrawal from the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said Monday that North Korea should approach this week’s summit with Trump with “awareness.” He says Iran views Trump and the United States with “great pessimism,” saying they are known for “quitting treaties and violating their commitments.
