Koreas summit kick-starts stalled talks with U.S.

A better-than-expected outcome of the summit between the two Koreas immediately kick-started stalled negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, boosting President Donald Trump’s high-stakes push to get the North to give up its nuclear weapons by the end of his first term in office.

But it left open a burning question: Will the concessions North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is offering be enough to convince the U.S. to meet any of his demands?

Trump, characteristically, hailed the result of the talks in Pyongyang between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in as “very exciting” and a sign of “tremendous progress” in his effort to get North Korea to denuclearize, which Kim agreed to do in vague terms when he met with Trump himself in Singapore in June.

Diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea that had gotten nowhere since the summit clicked into gear again. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday invited North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho for talks in New York next week, during the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. North Korean representatives were also invited to meet with the U.S. envoy for North Korean policy, Stephen Biegun, in Vienna “at the earliest opportunity.”

“This will mark the beginning of negotiations to transform U.S.-DPRK relations through the process of rapid denuclearization of North Korea, to be completed by January 2021, as committed by Chairman Kim, and to construct a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” Pompeo said in a statement.