The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump to meet Kim in Singapore
Summitwith North Korean leader to take place June 12.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his summit with North Korean leader Kim JongUnwill occur June 12 in Singapore, ahigh-stakes step in his bid to curb the rogue nation’ s nuclear weapons program.
Trump made the announcement via Twitter just hours after welcoming home three Americans held captive for more than a year in North Korea.
“The highly anticipated meeting between KimJong Un and myself will takeplace in Singapore on June 12th,” Trump wrote in his tweet. “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!”
Trump had floated other possible locations, including the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, where Kim met last month with South Korean President Moon Jae- in, which he said held the potential for being a “great celebration.”
But White House aides have been eying Singapore, a tiny island nation of 5.6 million that boasts one of the most advanced economies in Southeast Asia.
Singapore maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, which has an embassy and ambassador in the country. Singapore’s ambassador based in Beijing also is responsible for Pyongyang.
“Singapore is an ideal location for this summit,” said David Adelman, an attorney at Reed Smith who served as U.S. ambassador to the nation from 2010 to 2013 under former president Barack Obama.
“Really since its founding, Singapore has carefully cultivated a reputation where
East meets West,” he said. “They take great pride in being a friend to all. And they’ve done a great job doing so.”
The country has been the site of other high-profile summits. It plays host to an annual regional security conference, calledthe Shangri-La Dialogue, which usually draws the U.S. defense secretary and top officials from China and other nations. In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeoumet in Singapore, the fifirst meeting between the leaders of those two countries in seven years.
The Trump-Kim summit would be the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
South Korea’s Moon is scheduled to visit theWhite House on May 22 to debrief Trump on his own meeting with Kim and discuss strategy ahead of Trump’s summit.