Trump sends reply to new Kim letter

But no second meeting is currently planned, the White House says

WASHINGTON — The White House said on Thursday that US President Donald Trump has responded to a new letter from Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Trump’s letter will be delivered “shortly”.

At a news conference, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: “We have responded to Chairman Kim’s letter, the president has, and that letter will be delivered shortly.”

Refusing to reveal the contents of the two letters, Sanders only said that the letters “addressed their commitment from their joint statement” made at the Singapore summit on June 12.

“They are going to continue to work together toward complete and total denuclearization (of the Korean Peninsula),” she said.

Trump earlier said in a post on Twitter that he looks forward to seeing Kim “soon”.

However, Sanders said that although the White House is “certainly open to that discussion”, there is not “a second meeting that is currently locked in or finalized”.

Speaking of the DPRK’s repatriation of the remains of US war dead from the 1950-53 Korean War, Sanders said that the US side was “incredibly grateful and thankful”.

“We are going to continue to work” with the DPRK, she said.

Earlier on that day, Sanders said in a statement that Trump had received a letter from Kim, and “the ongoing correspondence between the two leaders is aimed at following up on their meeting in Singapore and advancing the commitments made in the US-DPRK joint statement”.

Trump also thanked Kim via Twitter for returning the remains of fallen US soldiers from the Korean War.

The repatriation of the remains of US service members was part of the commitment made by Trump and Kim at the Singapore summit. A ceremony was held on Wednesday in Hawaii to receive the remains.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is poised to back a US proposal aimed at removing some of the hurdles that tough sanctions on the DPRK have thrown up in the way of delivering humanitarian aid, according to documents obtained by AFP.

The Security Council last year adopted three rafts of sanctions targeting the DPRK economy in response to its sixth nuclear test and a series of ballistic missile launches.

“Economic sanctions are not supposed to have an impact on impartial humanitarian action. But they do. They have unintended consequences,” said Simon Schorno, the head of aid operations for the International Red Cross in Asia.

At a UN meeting last month, the DPRK’s deputy ambassador complained that deliveries of medical equipment such as X-ray machines, anti-malaria insecticides and reproductive health kits had been held up for months.

The UN reported a drop in food production in the DPRK last year. Its resolutions specify that sanctions should not affect humanitarian aid.

A US proposal put forward last month would provide clear instructions to aid organizations and governments to apply for UN sanctions exemptions for Pyongyang, according to the text.

After weeks of negotiations, the UN committee is expected to give final approval to the new guidelines on Monday.

Once approved, a notice will be sent to the UN’s 193 member states by the committee “to provide a clear explanation of its comprehensive humanitarian exemption mechanism” which will “improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance to DPRK”, according to the documents.