Anti-nuke group offers to pay for summit
SINGAPORE: Nobel Prize-winning anti-nuclear campaign group International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) has offered to pay for the cost of the historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump, including the hotel bill for the impoverished state’s leader.
The offer comes after a media report that the cash-strapped North may have trouble bearing the cost of its leader’s stay here and the large delegation of security and support staff for the meeting scheduled for June 12.
“This is a historic meeting, and once in a generation opportunity to help establish a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons,” Ican official Akira Kawasaki said.
The intention to spend the prize money is in line with the work the group has done to lobby for the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by 122 nations but not any of the nuclear weapons states or North Korea.
Kim Chang-son, the de facto chief of staff for the North Korean government, was seen at The Fullerton five-star hotel here last week during a visit to meet US officials to work out the logistics for the summit.
Singapore, a small but wealthy Southeast Asian city-state, has said it would bear the cost of the summit to do its part to ensure a successful meeting.
It has designated a central region of the wealthy city state as a “special event area” from June 10 to 14, for the planned summit between Trump and Jong-un, the government said yesterday.