Trump, North Korea leader to meet
President accepts Kim invitation to talk this spring
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has accepted an extraordinary invitation by North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un to meet this spring, a senior South Korean official announced at the White House on Thursday, signaling a potential breakthrough in long-stalled efforts to end the nuclear impasse on the Korean peninsula.
Any face-to-face meeting, if it takes place, would be historic — the first ever between the leaders of two longtime adversaries that fought one bitter war and have threatened to renew fighting. Leaders of the two nations have never even shared a phone call.
Chung Eui-yong, South Korea’s national security director, said in an unusual news conference on the White House lawn that the North Korean ruler had expressed “his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible” and that Trump had agreed to do so by May. It wasn’t clear where the meeting would take place. Kim has not left North Korea since taking power in 2011, and only a handful of foreign leaders have visited Pyongyang, which faces multiple United Nations and other sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Chung made the announcement after briefing Trump’s top national security aides, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan.
Chung said he was delivering a message — apparently a signed letter — to the White House that the North Korean ruler had given him and Suh Hoon, chief of South Korean’s national intelligence service, earlier this week in Pyongyang.
The South Korean official said that Kim had agreed to “refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests” and that the North Koreans understood that the U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises that are scheduled for this spring “must continue.”
In the past, North Korea has denounced those joint military exercises as a provocation and a pretext for a U.S. invasion and responded with ballistic missile tests and other threats. The Pentagon had delayed this spring’s planned exercises so they wouldn’t coincide with last month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Chung praised Trump’s “leadership,” saying that the president’s “maximumpressure policy, together with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture.”
Both South Korea and the U.S. and their allies “remain fully and resolutely committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” he said, adding that they would “not repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Several White House officials stood on the edge of the scrum of reporters as Chung spoke for 21⁄2 minutes by the White House driveway, lit by television lights on a bitterly cold winter night. Neither he, nor the group of White House aides, answered questions as they walked back into the West Wing after the brief announcement.
It was difficult to recall another announcement of such potential significance being made at the White House by a foreign official.
A White House official said later that the announcement by a South Korean official “shows how closely we are coordinating this important topic with our ally South Korea.”
The U.S. and its allies have tried since the early 1990s to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, but every set of negotiations ultimately failed. The chances for success this time appear at least as daunting.
North Korea has successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile last September that appears capable of reaching the continental United States, and U.S. officials say it is fast closing on the ability to put a nuclear warhead on it.
Trump personally hinted at the news when he made his first appearance ever in the White House briefing room Thursday afternoon and told reporters to stay around for “a major announcement” on North Korea, one that clearly met his approval.
Trump and Kim have traded crude insults and harsh threats over the past year, but Trump also said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim under the right circumstances.
In a statement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Trump “will accept the invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearization of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”
On Thursday night, the president tweeted: “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!”
The South Koreans said that during meetings on Monday and Tuesday, Kim had offered to freeze further nuclear or ballistic missile tests while talks proceed and to “denuclearize” if he was convinced his country faced no military threat and his dynastic regime was secure.
In a sign of the fastmoving diplomacy, Kim will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in next month.
Earlier this week, Trump voiced cautious optimism about talks with North Korea, saying he hoped the North Koreans were “sincere” in their offer to engage in talks. But he said he’s prepared “to go whichever path is necessary.”
Members of the Trump administration urged caution, saying multiple diplomatic attempts to curb North Korean’s nuclear program since the early 1990s all have failed and that Kim’s government may be seeking to get out of onerous sanctions or buy time to make a more advanced warhead.
“We’re a long ways from negotiations,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Ethiopia, where he was on a five-nation tour of Africa.