Kim Jong-un to meet S Korea leader in landmark summit
SEOUL - The leaders of North and South Korea are due to meet at a summit next month, Seoul’s envoy says.
It will be the first such meeting for more than a decade and the first since Kim Jong-un took power in North Korea.
The envoy also said Kim suggested he would be willing to discuss getting rid of nuclear weapons, but only if his country’s security could be guaranteed.
In previous programmes to halt its nuclear ambitions, the North has failed to keep its promises.
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet on the heavily fortified border next month, at the truce village of Panmunjom. The two countries also agreed to open a hotline between the leaders. After returning from a rare trip to Pyongyang, South Korean officials said Kim told them there would be no missile tests while diplomacy continued.
This is a huge turnaround for North Korea’s young leader.
The United States had said talks with North Korea would only go ahead if it was willing to discuss denuclearisation.
The US has said it is “cautiously optimistic” about improving North-South contacts, but ruled out formal talks with Pyongyang unless it was ready to give up its nuclear weapons.
Throughout the Olympics, North and South Korea struck a friendly tone, sending athletes to compete in a joint team and holding talks. But the US maintained that North Korean gestures of rapprochement would carry little weight without a commitment on nuclear weapons - particularly following last year’s nuclear and missile tests car- ried out by the North.
South Korean officials had dinner with the normally reclusive leader on Monday. Among the delegation were intelligence chief Suh Hoon and National Security Adviser Chung Euiyong.-BBC