US team meets North Korea officials in bid to save summit

AMERICAN diplomats yesterday met North Korean officials in the peninsula’s demilitarized zone in an effort to save the shelved summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

The meeting appeared to back up President Trump’s assertion earlier yesterday that the summit in Singapore – which he had cancelled on Thursday – could still take place on June 12.

He tweeted: ‘Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong-un and myself.

‘I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial nation one day. Kim Jong-un agrees with me on this. It will happen!’

Heather Nauert, spokesman for the US State Department, confirmed that an American delegation was ‘in ongoing talks with North Korean officials’ in Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone, which separates the two Koreas. She added: ‘We continue to prepare for a meeting.’

North Korea’s state-run news service yesterday said Kim ‘expressed his fixed will on the historic US summit talks’.

It came after the North’s leader and South Korean president Moon Jae-in held surprise talks, apparently requested by Kim.

Yesterday Mr Moon said that Kim ‘made clear his commitment to a complete denuclearisation’ and said he was willing to cooperate to end confrontation and work toward peace for the sake of a successful summit with the US. Mr Moon added: ‘What Kim is unclear about is that he has concerns about whether his country can surely trust the United States over its promise to end hostile relations [with North Korea] and provide a security guarantee if they do denuclearisation.

‘During the South Korea-US summit, President Trump said the US is willing to clearly put an end to hostile relations and help [the North] achieve economic prosperity if North Korea conducts denuclearisation.’

Before the US delegation left yesterday, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House: ‘We’re doing very well in terms of the summit with North Korea. It’s moving along very nicely. So we’re looking at June 12 in Singapore. That hasn’t changed. So, we’ll see what happens.’

On Thursday the President had rattled the Koreas by cancelling his meeting with Kim, citing ‘open hostility’ from Pyongyang. In a letter sent directly to the North’s leader, Mr Trump referred to comments by a senior North Korean official describing US vice president Mike Pence as ‘ignorant and stupid’, and a ‘political dummy’.

Days before, the Kim regime had also threatened to scrap the talks after claiming it was offended by remarks made by Mr Pence last week.