Los Angeles Times

Is there a stage big enough?

For Trump-Kim talks, the venue would have to be secure and fancy

- By Jessica Meyers Meyers is a special correspond­ent.

BEIJING — In less than three months, President Trump is supposed to reset history by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader. But there’s still one key omission in this momentous undertakin­g: where they will meet.

Mongolia and Sweden have offered to host the president and Kim Jong Un, the young ruler Trump calls “Little Rocket Man.” Seoul advocates the “Peace House” between North and South Korea. Beijing could get its chance as a global mediator. There’s always neutral Switzerlan­d, where Kim attended public school. How about a ship in internatio­nal waters? Why not Guam?

Let’s face it: This isn’t a typical situation. Kim hasn’t stepped foot outside North Korea since taking power in 2011. And yet a Trump visit to isolated Pyongyang portends logistical chaos. It’s difficult enough when he’s in New York.

The two leaders spent recent months vowing to destroy each other; these are not men for quiet, understate­d events.

“Both have a flair for melodrama and grand statements and big stages,” said Euan Graham, director of the internatio­nal security program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia. “The whole point of this is to gain attention.”

Here’s a look at potential sites:

Washington

Optics matter when it comes to planning historic events. North and South Vietnam argued about the shape of the negotiatin­g table during the 1968 Paris Peace talks. (They settled for two square tables separated by a round one.)

Kim wants the world to see his country as the United States’ peer, and he may see a trip to Washington as validating that status.

“Every North Korean leader has wanted to meet the U.S. on equal footing, and being recognized in the U.S. is the highest level of recognitio­n,” said Tong Zhao, a fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing, who studies North Korea.

Trump, as a presidenti­al candidate, did say he would consider inviting Kim to the Unite d States to discuss nuclear weapons over hamburgers. But even if Kim feels safe to travel, North Korean airplanes don’t cover long-haul distances. He would need to take a foreign aircraft.

“I don’t think Kim would want to travel too far and leave his home without its sole leader for too long,” said Duyeon Kim, visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum, a nonpartisa­n think tank in Seoul. “But, who knows, they’re both such unconventi­onal leaders, they might shock us all. The location is everything for optics and optics is everything for politics.”

Pyongyang

Former Presidents Clinton and Carter both visited the North Korean capital to soothe relations, although not while in office.

A presidenti­al visit to Pyongyang might give Kim greater legitimacy, an aspect the Trump administra­tion aims to avoid. And presidents don’t travel lightly. His security detail would need to do advance work and figure out how to secure a city few diplomats can even visit.

“Can you imagine Secret Service running security in Pyongyang?” said Robert Kelly, a political science professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. “Can you even do that in 10 weeks?”

A neutral country in Asia or Europe

China, North Korea’s only ally, has hosted negotiatio­ns involving the reclusive country before. A meeting in Beijing would allow officials to keep tabs on decisions.

North Korea’s former leader and Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, visited the country on several occasions. Trump also likes Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he calls “a good man.”

But China irked Kim by agreeing to United Nations sanctions and denouncing the country’s developmen­t of nuclear weapons. Xi on Monday met with South Korea’s top national security advisor, not a North Korean official.

“I don’t believe China is eager to insert itself into a high-stakes, high-risk event that so far involves a lot of impulse decision-making and little strategic planning,” said Yanmei Xie, a China policy analyst for Gavekal Dragonomic­s, a research firm in Beijing.

Former Mongolian President Tsakhiagii­n Elbegdorj tweeted an offer to meet in his country, “the most suitable neutral territory.” Mongolia shares friendly relations with both countries, but may lack the grandeur the leaders seek for the occasion. Does anyone know where Ulan Bator is?

Some analysts are pulling for orderly Singapore, which coordinate­d a 2015 summit between Xi and Taiwan’s president at the time, Ma Ying-jeou. “It’s a neutral venue where both could be happy with the security, and it would be organized and run very reliably,” said Graham, the Lowy expert.

Europe, a traditiona­l meeting place for neverforge­t summits, offers further options. Sweden communicat­es with Pyongyang but also stands in as a consular office for Americans in North Korea. Neutral Switzerlan­d is where Kim, who is in his 30s, spent part of his youth.

But Kim, a man who hasn’t left his country in seven years, would need to travel nearly a day to reach these locations. The southeaste­rn Russia town of Vladivosto­k is closer. His father, after all, was born in a Russian fishing village — one of the few other countries where the elder Kim traveled.

Expect advisors to Trump — who is caught up in an investigat­ion over Russian meddling in the U.S. election — to scratch that one off the list.

No man’s land

That leaves the most likely choice: the “truce village” of Panmunjom. Top officials from North and South Korea plan to hold their own historic talks there in April.

The Peace House, where Trump and Kim would probably meet, sits in the demilitari­zed zone between the two Koreas and rings with symbolism. This region, now a line of division, was the site of the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War.

The DMZ challenge “is whether the setting is grand enough for the president and Kim Jong Un,” said James Kim, a research fellow for the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “It’s very spartan.”

South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju is another possibilit­y.

The dilemma over location underscore­s the precarious­ness of the summit, Kim added.

“People don’t know the answers about how, and if they don’t know, then how is it really going to happen?”

There’s still Guam.

 ?? Gary Ambrose For The Times ?? SOUTH KOREAN soldiers in the demilitari­zed zone between the two Koreas. One researcher questioned whether the DMZ is “grand enough” for the talks.
Gary Ambrose For The Times SOUTH KOREAN soldiers in the demilitari­zed zone between the two Koreas. One researcher questioned whether the DMZ is “grand enough” for the talks.

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