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Kristin Huang

Lee Jeong-ho

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are set to meet for a historic handshake at the demilitarised zone that separates the two Koreas on Sunday.
Trump, who is South Korea for a meeting with President Moon Jae-in, admitted earlier that any meeting would be “very short”.

“Virtually a handshake, but that’s OK. A handshake means a lot,” he told a press conference at the Blue House in Seoul.
On Saturday, Trump invited Kim to meet him at the border, in an apparently spontaneous tweet.
Pyongyang responded by saying it was a “very interesting” suggestion.
Moon said when he saw the invitation he “could really feel that the flower of peace was truly blossoming on the Korean peninsula”.

After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019

“The US and North Korea would meet at the Panmunjom today, the first time in 66 years after the armistice of the Korean war,” Moon said at the press conference on Sunday, adding that he was also invited to the DMZ meeting.
“But the focus today would be centred upon the dialogue between the US and North Korea,” he said.
Trump also confirmed his meeting with Kim during the press conference.
“We are so far advanced than where we are two and a half years ago … We are doing well. Let’s see what happens,” he said.
The surprise meeting might lead to another chance for the pair to reset relations and set the scene for future nuclear talks.
“Whether the third round of the US-North Korea summit [is] to be held or not, depends on the meeting,” Moon told reporters.

Trump’s visit to South Korea came after the G20 summit in Osaka, where the US and China agreed to a trade truce.
The meeting at the DMZ would be the third for two leaders, after high-stakes nuclear talks in Singapore last June and Hanoi in February.
After the collapse of the Hanoi summit, talks between Washington and Pyongyang stalled as both sides insisted on their own definitions of denuclearisation.
Trump’s visit to the DMZ would also come after President Xi Jinping’s state visit to North Korea in May, which showed Beijing is still North Korea’s most important ally and a lifeline for Kim’s government.
Xi’s trip, in the words of the foreign ministry in Beijing, injected new impetus into relations in a year the two countries marked the 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties and gave the denuclearisation talks a much needed push.
Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean Studies at the Centre for the National Interest, said the meeting would be “short but meaningful, as it will mark a reset in relations”.
“It will also allow both sides to test each other’s intentions, possibly picking up from where negotiations left off in Hanoi,” he said.
Leif-Eric EASLEY, associate professor of international security and political economics at Ewha University in Seoul, said a deal based on the verified dismantlement of Yongbyon’s plutonium and uranium facilities could be a “workable compromise to earn North Korea sanctions relief”.
“All parties would have to agree that denuclearisation does not stop there but will proceed to address North Korea’s other nuclear and delivery capabilities,” Easley said, noting that Seoul may also resume economic engagement in the North.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s slain half-brother Kim Jong-nam ‘was a CIA informant’, and ‘almost certainly’ in contact with China, reports say
“Coaxing Trump and Kim together is not sufficient for South Korean interests,” he said “Sanctions waivers for inter-Korean projects plus some UN sanctions relief … are possible if North Korea accepts international inspectors to verify an end to fissile material production.”
But Hwang Jae-ho, director of the Global Security Cooperation Centre at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said whether interaction between the leaders can generate constructive results is unclear.
 “Everyone would pay attention [to the meeting] regardless of the outcome,” Hwang said, even if it was “just two minutes”.


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Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to meet in demilitarised zone

The southern side of the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone, South Korea. File photo: AP

President Donald Trump, left, speaks as he sits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, during a bilateral meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, Sunday, June 30, 2019. AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Policemen stand guard along the road before a convoy carrying US President Donald Trump travels to the South Korean presidential Blue House in Seoul on June 30, 2019. - US President Donald Trump heads for the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas on June 30, and a possible impromptu summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in what would be a remarkable diplomatic spectacle. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

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Surprise meeting expected a day after US president issued unprecedented invitation to meet and cross the border for history-making photo opportunity


Surprise meeting expected a day after US president issued unprecedented invitation to meet and cross the border for history-making photo opportunity.


Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to meet in demilitarised zone

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Surprise meeting expected a day after US president issued unprecedented invitation to meet and cross the border for history-making photo opportunity

Surprise meeting expected a day after US president issued unprecedented invitation to meet and cross the border for history-making photo opportunity