U. S. President Donald Trump on Thursday played down the chances of a quick deal in getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms as a delegation from Pyongyang headed to meet him with a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, suggesting a proposed summit may be back
NEW YORK/ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) — U. S. President Donald Trump on Thursday played down the chances of a quick deal in getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms as a delegation from Pyongyang headed to meet him with a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, suggesting a proposed summit may be back on.
Trump told Reuters he was still hoping for an unprecedented meeting with Kim on June 12 in Singapore to push for North Korean “denuclearization,” but North Korea’s leader said his position on that central issue had not changed.
“I’d like to see it done in one meeting,” Trump said in an interview on Air Force One. “But often times that’s not the way deals work. There’s a very good chance that it won’t be done in one meeting or two meetings or three meetings. But it’ll get done at some point.”
In Pyongyang, Kim gave no indication of any shift on denuclearization, saying his country’s will to see it realized on the Korean peninsula remained “unchanged, consistent and fixed,” and that he hoped North Korea-U. S. relations and denuclearization of the peninsula would both be solved on a “stage-by-stage” basis.
The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim made the remarks in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and that the two agreed their countries should hold a bilateral summit next year.
Until this year, Kim had made no visits outside his country since taking over from his father as leader in 2011. He has since held summits with South Korea and made two visits to China as part of a campaign of diplomatic outreach aimed at easing Pyongyang’s isolation and U. S.-led international sanctions.
North Korea has rejected U. S. calls for its unilateral nuclear disarmament and argued for a “phased” approach to denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula, which in the past has meant removal of the U. S. nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea and Japan.
U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a North Korean delegation, headed by high-ranking official Kim Yong Chol, with whom he held two days of talks with in New York, would make a rare visit to the White House on Friday and give Trump a letter from Kim.
