Trump to visit South Korea in June

WASHINGTON: US Presi dent Donald Trump will visit South Korea in June to meet with his counterpart Moon Jae In over their efforts to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons arsenal, the White House has said.

It will be the second meeting between the pair since the coll apse of a s ummit between Trump a nd Nort h Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in February after they failed to reach a deal on denuclearisation. “President Trump and President Moon will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearisation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

The dovish South Korean president, who has long backed engagement with the nucleararmed North, brokered the talks process between Trump and Kim, which led to their first landmark summit in Singapore last June. But security allies Seoul and Washington have at times appeared to diverge on their approach to Pyongyang, and Seoul’ s s i multaneous announcement of the visit was noticeably different in its phrasing.

A statement issued by the South’s presidential office said the two leaders will discuss “establishing a lasting peace regime through the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” - rather than the North specifically.

The “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” was the term used i n t he j oint statement signed by Kim and Trump after their first summit in Singapore.

NORTH SUFFERS WORST DROUGHT IN DECADES

North Korea has said it is suffering its worst drought in nearly four decades amid reports of severe food shortages.

The official Korean Central News Agency said an average of 54.4mm of rain fell throughout t he country i n t he f i rst f i ve months this year. That is the lowest since 1982, when North Korea received 51.2 mm of rain on average.

In February, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, Kim Song, issued an unusual appeal for urgent food assistance.