Developing | Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to hold historic face-to-face meeting

US President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from Kim Jong-un for a historic face-to-face meeting, a surprise development that could mark a potential breakthrough in North Korea’s nuclear stand-off with America and its allies.

South Korea’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong made the announcement of Kim’s offer in Washington on Thursday (Friday morning Hong Kong time).

Chung said Kim was “committed to denuclearisation” and would refrain from any further nuclear and missile tests.

He said Kim wanted to meet Trump as “soon as possible” and that Trump said “he would meet Kim Jong-un by May to achieve permanent denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula.

Kim “understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea [South Korea] and the United States must continue”, Chung said.

No American president has ever met with a North Korean leader.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later confirmed Chung’s comments. She said Trump would “meet with Kim Jong-un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearisation of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”