Trump could meet Kim on Koreas border
President Donald Trump said Monday that he is considering holding his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone with South Korea, rather than in a third-party country, because of the potential to have a “great celebration.”
The president’s announcement, made first in a tweet and then reiterated during a news conference, came after his aides had focused for weeks on arranging the historic meeting outside the Korean Peninsula.
Trump also disclosed that Singapore was a leading option, but he said he was intrigued at the idea of using “Peace House,” a three-story South Korean building in the border village of Panmunjom, where Kim met last week with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
“I threw that out today as an idea,” Trump said at the news conference at the White House with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Trump said he relayed his interest to Moon.
“There’s something I like about it because you’re there,” he said. “If things work out, there’s a great celebration to be had on site.”
In some regards, the demilitarized zone, a tensely guarded strip of land at the 38th parallel that has divided the peninsula since the 1953 Korean War armistice, has long been regarded as an obvious choice to hold diplomatic talks between the U.S. and North Korea. But some Trump aides were wary of having him travel to meet Kim so close to his own turf, lest it appear too deferential and come off as a meeting between equally powerful world leaders. Other foreign policy analysts speculated Trump would want a grander setting than the gritty demilitarized zone.
But the Moon-Kim meeting produced astonishing images of the two leaders shaking hands across the dividing line before stepping, in turn, back and forth over the line together — a symbolic but emotionally powerful moment for many South Koreans who have relatives living in the North.
Trump’s embrace of the site could carry some risk given that a “celebration” during his summit with Kim could be premature. White House aides have expressed skepticism in private of Kim’s motives, given North Korea’s history of violating past deals aimed at stunting its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
“Maybe a lot of things will change, but Kim Jong Un has been very open, very straightforward so far,” Trump said. “I can only say ‘so far,’ but he’s talking about getting rid of the [nuclear testing] site. He’s talking about no research, no launching ballistic missiles, no nuclear testing. He has lived up to that for a longer period of time than anybody has seen.”