Trump, Kim converge in Singapore ahead of high-stakes summit
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un converged on this island city-state Sunday ahead of one of the most unusual and highly anticipated summits in recent world history, a sit-down meant to settle a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
Trump descended from Air Force One into the steamy Singapore night, greeting officials and declaring he felt “very good,’’ before he was whisked away to his hotel, driving along a route lined with police and photo-snapping onlookers. Trump travelled to Singapore from Canada, where he met with other world leaders whose countries make up the Group of Seven.
Hours earlier, a jet carrying Kim landed. After shaking hands with the Singapore foreign minister, Kim sped through the streets in a limousine, two large North Korean flags fluttering on the hood, surrounded by other black vehicles with tinted windows and bound for the luxurious and closely guarded St. Regis Hotel.
He and Trump are set to meet Tuesday morning in the first summit of its kind between a leader of North Korea and a sitting U.S. president. The North has faced crippling diplomatic and economic sanctions as it has advanced development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Kim smiled broadly Sunday evening as he met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
“The entire world is watching
the historic summit between (North Korea) and the United States of America, and thanks to your sincere efforts ... we were able to complete the preparations for the historic summit,’’ Kim told Lee through an interpreter.
Trump is set to meet with Lee on Monday.
Trump has said he hopes to make a legacy-defining deal for the North to give up its nuclear weapons, though he has recently sought to manage expectations, saying that it may take more than one meeting.
The North, many experts believe, stands on the brink of being able to target the entire U.S. mainland with its nucleararmed missiles, and while there’s deep skepticism that
Kim will quickly give up those hard-won nukes, there’s also some hope that diplomacy can replace the animosity between the U.S. and the North.
U.S. and North Korean officials are set to meet Monday morning in Singapore to make final preparations for Tuesday’s meeting. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines who has taken the lead on policy negotiations with the North, will hold a “working group’’ with a North Korean delegation.
The North Korean autocrat’s every move will be followed by 3,000 journalists who have converged on Singapore, and by gawkers around the world,
up until he shakes hands with Trump on Tuesday. It’s a reflection of the intense global curiosity over Kim’s sudden turn to diplomacy in recent months after a slew of North Korean nuclear and missile tests last year raised serious fears of war.
Part of the interest in Tuesday’s summit is simply because Kim has had limited appearances on the world stage. He has only publicly left his country three times since taking power after his father’s death in late 2011 — travelling twice to China and once across his shared border with the South to the southern part of the Demilitarized Zone in recent summits with the leaders of China and South Korea, respectively.