For Asia and the world, cautious hope for peace

TOKYO — South Koreans cheered, Iran warned that President Trump should not be trusted and China said it may be time to discuss lifting sanctions on North Korea as Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held an unprecedented summit Tuesday in Singapore.

Around Asia and the world, many have welcomed the flurry of diplomacy in recent months between the two adversaries, after a year of mounting tension, threats and name-calling. Hopes for peace on the longdivided Korean Peninsula, however, remain tempered by the many failed attempts in the past.

“The United States and North Korea have been in a state of antagonism for more than half a century,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “Today, that the two countries’ highest leaders can sit together and have equal talks, has important and positive meaning, and is creating a new history.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang later said that U.N. sanctions against North Korea could be suspended or lifted in accordance with the North’s actions.

“We believe the Security Council should make efforts to support the diplomatic efforts at the present time,” he said.

Trump said at a postsummit news conference that he has held off from imposing additional sanctions, but that the U.S. would remove sanctions when the North’s nuclear weapons “are no longer a factor.”

Iran, meanwhile, reminded Kim that Trump should not be trusted because he could nullify any nuclear deal with North Korea, just as he had pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

“We are facing a man who revokes his signature while abroad,” government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he “could hardly sleep last night” in anticipation of the meeting and expressed hope for “complete denuclearization and peace.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed Kim’s written commitment to complete denuclearization in an agreement signed with Trump at the end of their meeting in Singapore.

New Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that “both sides must be prepared to give in certain issues if they expect to reach a good conclusion.”

At a train station in Seoul, the South Korean capital, people cheered and applauded as televisions screens broadcast the Trump-Kim handshake live.