Meeting raises cautious hope of peace for world
GOOD OMEN South Korean President Moon Jaein said he could hardly sleep in anticipation of the meeting and expressed hope for “complete denuclearisation and peace,” as many countrymen cheered
TOKYO/WASHINGTON: South Koreans cheered, Iran warned that US President Donald Trump should not be trusted as he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held an unprecedented summit in Singapore on Tuesday.
Around Asia and the world, many have welcomed the flurry of diplomacy in recent months between the two adversaries, after a year of mounting tension, threats and name-calling. Hopes for peace on the long-divided Korean Peninsula, however, remain tempered by the many failed attempts in the past.
Iran reminded Kim that Trump should not be trusted because he could nullify any nuclear deal with North Korea, just as he had pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. “We are facing a man who revokes his signature while abroad,” said government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he “could hardly sleep last night” in anticipation of the meeting and expressed hope for “complete denuclearization and peace.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed Kim’s written commitment to complete denuclearization in an agreement signed with Trump at the end of their meeting in Singapore.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, on a visit to Tokyo, said that “both sides must be prepared to give in certain issues if they expect to reach a good conclusion.”
At a train station in Seoul, people cheered and applauded as televisions screens broadcast the Trump-kim handshake live.
“I really, really hope for a good outcome,” said Yoon Ji, a professor at Sungshin University in Seoul. “I am hoping for denuclearization and a peace agreement and also for North Korea’s economy to open up.”
Not everyone was optimistic. “Trump’s words that the process of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula will start ‘very, very soon’ is more of a wish than a fact,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, wrote on his Facebook page. “The role of the international community is important here. We must take the two leaders at their word and push them further,” he wrote.
Japan’s largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, printed a onepage “extra” edition in both Japanese and English that was distributed free in major cities 90 minutes after the meeting began.
Passers-by outside a Tokyo train station snapped up 500 copies. They generally welcomed the meeting as a good first step but wondered if progress would be made on the fate of Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. “I have no idea how much the abduction issue is being taken up at the summit, but I hope it will be a good start for that issue too,” said 70-year-old retiree Tomoaki Kenmotsu.
Sakie Yokota, the mother of Japan’s iconic abduction victim Megumi Yokota told Japanese public broadcaster NHK that it seemed like a “miracle” that Trump had raised the abduction issue with Kim.
TRUMP PLEDGE TO END DRILLS CATCHES PENTAGON OFF GUARD
Pentagon officials scrambled for a clear message on Tuesday about the US military presence in South Korea, after Trump vowed to cancel “provocative” joint drills.
Trump surprised observers when he told reporters after the unprecedented meeting in Singapore that continuing the exercises routinely held between the US and South Korean militaries would be “inappropriate” while the US works to flesh out a comprehensive deal with North Korea.
“We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should,” Trump said.