Trump agrees to meeting with North Korea’s Kim
Talks with North Korean leader would be extraordinary
President Donald Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by May for talks toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, South Korea’s national security adviser announced Thursday. The extraordinary and unexpected opening is the result of shuttle diplomacy by South Korea.
WASHINGTON – President Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by May for high-level talks toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, a South Korean official said outside the White House on Thursday.
The extraordinary and unexpected opening came through shuttle diplomacy by a South Korean delegation arriving in Washington on Thursday. Trump heralded the development as a “major announcement” after speaking with the South Korean president.
“I told President Trump that in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he’s committed to denuclearization. He pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests,” South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong told reporters after meeting with Trump at the White House.
Significantly, there was no insistence that the United States and South Korea suspend joint military exercises.
Chung met with Kim earlier this week and came to Washington on Thursday to relay the message from the North Kore-
an leader.
“I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy, along with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture,” he said.
The Trump administration has rallied the United Nations to impose evertightening sanctions against North Korea following a battery of missile tests.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump would accept the invitation to meet Kim “at a place and time to be determined.” But “in the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”
Trump claimed a diplomatic victory Thursday, telling ABC News: “Hopefully, you will give me credit.”
Hours earlier, Trump hinted at the news in an unexpected — and unprecedented — visit to the White House briefing room, calling it a “major announcement” about a “big subject.”
“You know what, it’s a Hail Mary, but why not? Crazier things have happened in world history,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank founded by former president Richard Nixon. “Give peace a chance.”
But Kazianis cautioned that Trump has to be careful not to give Kim any concessions. “You can’t give Kim Jong Un the photo op he wants to legitimize him,” he said. “You cannot legitimize a county that has more than 100,000 people in what are essentially Nazi-style gulag camps.”
The surprise development follows several weeks of thawing relations between North and South Korea, prompted by the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang under a unified banner.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In sent Chung to North Korea this week as part of the highest-level talks in a decade.