President predicts ‘terrific relationship’
As the world waited, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un sat by themselves for the better part of an hour, alone but for a pair of interpreters who became the sole witnesses to history’s first face-toface conversation between an American president and a North Korean leader.
The scores of aides, bodyguards and diplomats who accompanied the leaders from Washington and Pyongyang waited elsewhere for the roughly 40-minute one-on-one meeting in Singapore.
If there was any tension between Trump and Kim, they did not show it as they emerged from their seclusion and proceeded to a second meeting and working lunch – this time joined by a larger coterie of aides.
‘‘Very, very good,’’ Trump told waiting reporters, adding that the two were forging an ‘‘excellent relationship.’’
Trump and Kim met just after 9am local time at the grand Capella hotel on a stage with a red carpet and alternating US and North Korean flags. They held their grip, then turned to face a small group of journalists for images to be beamed rapidly around the world, both men maintaining serious expressions and not smiling.
The president motioned to Kim to leave the stage, and the two men retreated into a private chamber to meet one on one, joined only by their interpreters, with the aim of establishing a rapport before they were joined by aides for the more technical nuclear arms negotiations.
As they sat next to one another in a pair of armchairs, Trump declared, ‘‘It’s my honour, and we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt.’’
Kim spoke in Korean, saying that ‘‘the old prejudices and practices worked as obstacles on our way forward, but we’ve overcome all of them, and we are here today.’’
The unprecedented greeting between the unorthodox leader of the world’s richest and most powerful nation and the brutal ruler of the most isolated and repressive would have been considered almost unimaginable just months ago as Trump and Kim traded threats and insults. Never before had a sitting US president met with a ruling Kim family patriarch, as previous White Houses refused to validate the regime amid its nuclear provocations and human rights abuses.
But beneath the remarkable images from the Capella was the thornier reality that the two sides remained divided on crucial issues and a path forward on a denuclearisation plan, which could take years to complete and would probably face significant potential stumbling blocks along the way.
The goal of the summit was to ratify the outlines of a joint statement, to be released before the two men left Singapore later in the day, that laid out a framework for additional talks.
After their one-on-one meeting, the two leaders were joined by senior aides for more technical talks. On the US side, Trump’s team included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
The question for Trump and Kim, four decades younger and taking a gamble of his own, was whether their risky encounter would produce a historic breakthrough to ease tensions, or collapse and leave Kim emboldened and US influence weakened on the global stage. – Washington Post, AP