Trump, Kim in Singapore for summit
Singapore, June 10: North Korean leader Kim Jongun and Donald Trump arrived in Singapore Sunday for an unprecedented summit, with Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal at the top of the agenda and the US President calling it a “one- time shot” at peace.
Bringing the Korean War to a formal end 65 years after hostilities ceased will also be on the table at the first- ever meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting president of its “imperialist enemy”.
It is an extraordinary turnaround from the tensions of last year, when Mr Kim accelerated his weapons programmes — earning the North more sets of UN Security Council sanctions — and the two men traded personal insults and threats of war.
But critics charge that the meeting risks being largely a triumph of style over substance.
Mr Kim arrived in Singapore on board an Air China 747 that according to flight tracking website Flightradar24 took off from Pyongyang in the morning ostensibly bound for Beijing, then changed its flight number in midair and headed south.
“If the summit becomes a success, the Singaporean efforts will go down in history,” Mr Kim said.
Mr Trump landed in the evening after a long flight from Canada and the G7 meeting there, telling Singaporean officials who welcomed him that he was feeling “very good” about the summit.
La Malbaie ( Canada), June 10: US President Donald Trump predicted on Sunday that he would know within a minute of meeting Kim Jong- un whether his “one- time shot” at peace with the North Korean leader had a chance of succeeding.
Speaking just before embarking on his marathon journey to Singapore for the pair’s historic summit, Trump bristled with confidence as he boasted that contacts between their respective negotiating teams had been positive.
“It’s unknown territory in the truest sense but I really feel confident,” Trump said as he prepared to leave the ongoing G7 summit in Canada early and head to Asia.
“I feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people and he has that opportunity... It’s a one- time shot,” he said at a press conference, adding that the North Koreans had been working “very well with us.”
After his remarks, Trump headed to the Canadian air base at Bagotville by helicopter before boarding Air Force One and setting off for Singapore, where he was scheduled to arrive late Sunday.
Trump and Kim are to have the first ever USNorth Korea summit in Singapore on Tuesday, with the American leader hoping his counterpart will scrap his nuclear weapons programme in return for security guarantees. The US president was the first of the G7 leaders to leave the summit in Canada where he briefed his peers on the meeting.