Trump-kim summit only after US mid-term election

WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump said he didn’t expect to meet Kim Jong Un until after US. elections in November, as the administration struggles to secure disarmament commitments from North Korea.

The US president said his campaign schedule prevented meetings before the November 6 vote, in which Republican control of Congress hangs in the balance.

Still, he said the administration had “made i ncredible progress” in negotiations over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and was considering three to four locations for a second summit.

“I just can’t leave now,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, while en route to a campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Earlier, the president had said discussions about a second summit were progressing and that details “won’t be too far away.”

Trump and Kim signed a vague agreement in Singapore in June to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but have so far struggled for a deal on the pace and sequence of steps to achieve that goal. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo came away from meetings Sunday in North Korea without a date for another meeting or news on when key denuclearization milestones might take place.

Trump said that his second meeting with Kim would be in “probably a different location” than Singapore.

North Korean officials have suggested Pyongyang as a site, though that would hand a major propaganda victory to Kim, without him having to make a concession.