Hanoi to host second Trump-Kim summit
Trump hailed the communist nation’s future, adding, ‘North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great economic powerhouse’
Times News Service
MUSCAT: The next meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, the White House recently announced.
The meeting will take place on 27-28 of February, Trump confirmed.
In a statement on Twitter, he said, “My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second summit with Kim Jong Un.
“It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 and 28.
I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim and advancing the cause of peace!”
Trump hailed the communist nation’s future, adding, “North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great economic powerhouse.
He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him and fully understand how capable he is.
“North Korea will become a different kind of rocket- an economic one!” It will be their second meeting following the first which happened last June in Singapore.
Kim at the time pledged to “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula.”
Stephen Biegun, the US special representative for North Korea, held three days of talks in Pyongyang to prepare for the summit, the state department said on Friday.
It said Biegun had agreed with his counterpart Kim Hyok Chol to meet again ahead of the summit.
In their talks in Pyongyang, from Wednesday to Friday, Biegun and Kim Hyok Chol “discussed advancing president Trump and chairman Kim’s Singapore summit commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations, and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the state department said.
Its statement, which referred to North Korea by the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, gave no indication of any progress in the talks.
Narrowing differences
Just weeks ahead of the planned summit to follow on from an unprecedented first meeting between the leaders in Singapore last June, the two sides have appeared far from narrowing differences over US demands for North Korea to give up a nuclear weapons programme that threatens the United States.
Biegun said last week his Pyongyang talks would be aimed at seeking progress on commitments made in Singapore and mapping out “a set of concrete deliverables” for the second summit.
He said Washington was willing to discuss “many actions” to improve ties and entice Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and that Trump was ready to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Biegun said Kim Jong Un committed during an October visit by US secretary of state Mike Pompeo to the dismantling and destruction of plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities and that “corresponding measures” demanded by North Korea would be the subject of his talks.
At the same time, he set out an extensive list of demands that North Korea would have to meet eventually, including full disclosure of its nuclear and missile programs, something Pyongyang has rejected for decades.
On Saturday, Biegun said his talks in North Korea had been productive and Trump looked forward very much to his meeting with Kim in Hanoi.