Trump: Talks with Kim in May or June

President Donald Trump said Monday that he expects to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in May or early June and expressed hope they would reach a deal on “de-nuking” the Korean peninsula.

Last month, Trump abruptly accepted an invitation to meet with Kim after South Korean officials delivered the message that the reclusive leader was willing to discuss abandoning his nuclear weapons program. Over the weekend, U.S. officials said they had received similar assurances directly from senior North Korean counterparts.

That appears to clear the way for talks between Trump — who has mocked his counterpart as “Little Rocket Man” — and Kim, whose pursuit of nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States has accelerated during the first 15 months of Trump’s administration.

“We’ve been in touch with North Korea,” Trump said at the beginning of a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “I think there will be great respect paid by both parties and hopefully we’ll be able to make a deal on the de-nuking of North Korea. They’ve said so, we’ve said so, hopefully it’ll be a relationship that’s much different than it’s been for many, many years.”

Trump said a deal would have been easier 10 years ago. Under Kim, North Korea has made rapid strides in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and is believed to be nearing the technological breakthroughs required to deliver a warhead to the continental U.S. Trump added: “We have a meeting that is being set up with North Korea, so that will be very exciting, I think, for the world. I think it’s going to be a very exciting thing for the world.”

Also on Monday, Kim briefed top ruling party officials on his vision for the future direction of dialogue with the United States and his coming summit with South Korea’s president, the North’s official media reported.

Kim gave his “profound analysis and appraisal” of the prospects for North Korea-U.S. dialogue at a meeting of the Politburo of the ruling party’s Central Committee, the Korean Central News Agency reported today.

The report did not specifically mention plans for Kim to hold a summit with Trump, but it suggests Pyongyang is actively preparing for the meeting and is ready to let North Koreans know big events may be ahead.

The North’s official media had previously made virtually no mention of the diplomatic overtures Kim has made toward Seoul and Washington since January, though it did trumpet Kim’s visit to Beijing last month to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The report said Kim outlined in detail his analysis on the situation on the Korean Peninsula and mentioned the North-South summit. Kim is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-In on April 27.

He then discussed the “prospect of the DPRK-U.S. dialogue and set forth the strategic and tactical issues” to be maintained by the party.

Though the report did not explicitly mention plans for the summit with Trump, it was the most concrete suggestion to date that Pyongyang is preparing for what would be the first-ever summit between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president.

It remains unclear whether North Korea would put conditions on its willingness to stop its nuclear program that would be unacceptable to the United States. And it is not certain that Trump would be able to secure the kind of verification that would be necessary to ensure that the North Koreans are abiding by any agreement.