Trump says meeting with Kim ‘in near future’

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have “a wonderful relationship going,” and that he would be announcing the timing and location of his next meeting with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un in the “very near future.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said officials were laying the groundwork for the next summit, but any meeting would likely occur after October.

Trump, speaking to reporters as he was entering the United Nations, said: “I’ll be meeting with Chairman Kim in the very near future. It’ll be announced. We’re having a press conference today. We’ll start talking about that. But we’ll be announcing where and when in the very near future.”

Asked what the DPRK had to do before his next meeting with Kim, Trump said the two had made “a tremendous amount of progress” since last year. “They’re denuclearizing North Korea. We have a wonderful relationship going between our country and them,” he said.

Pompeo said in an interview with “CBS This Morning” that US officials were “working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon.”

“It may happen in October but more likely sometime after that.”

Trump held an unprecedented summit with Kim in Singapore on June 12 that yielded a broad pledge by Kim to “work toward” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump praised Kim for his courage in taking steps to disarm, but said much work still had to be done and sanctions must remain in place on the DPRK until it denuclearizes.

Yesterday, he told the UN Security Council that many positive things were happening behind the scenes on the DPRK, “away from the media.”

“So I think you will have some very good news coming from North Korea in the coming months and years.”

Trump said Kim had reaffirmed his commitment to complete denuclearization to him directly in a “very strong letter form.”

“I think we will make a deal,” he said.

“But unfortunately to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs,” Trump said.