Kim: Let’s go again

North Korea’s leader expresses desire for second US summit

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has received a request from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for a follow-up to their historic June summit, and planning is in motion to make it happen.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday no details had been finalised, but that Mr Trump had received a letter from his North Korean counterpart, which she described as “very warm, very positive”.

“The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the president, which we are open to and are already in the process of co-ordinating that,” Ms Sanders said.

Relations between the pair have seemed to ebb and flow since Mr Trump became the first sitting US president to meet a North Korean leader. Their historic, one-day summit in June in Singapore was held to discuss denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, and Mr Trump emerged from their talks full of praise for the authoritarian Mr Kim.

Mr Trump recently called off a planned visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to North Korea, citing lack of progress toward eliminating its nuclear arsenal. But on Sunday, the president offered fresh praise for Mr Kim following a North Korean military parade that, unlike past parades, downplayed its missiles and nuclear weapons.

“This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea,” Mr Trump tweeted on Sunday about the parade.

“Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong! There is nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other! Much better than before I took office.”

Ms Sanders also cited the parade in her comments yesterday.

“The recent parade in North Korea, for once, was not about their nuclear arsenal,” she said, calling the parade “a sign of good faith”.