San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Trump invites Kim to join his DMZ diplomacy
SEOUL — President Trump issued a Twitter invitation Saturday to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to meet for a handshake at the Demilitarized Zone that separates the North and South, and expressed a willingness to cross the border for what would be a historymaking photo opportunity.
The invitation, while long rumored in diplomatic circles, still came across as an impulsive display of showmanship by a president bent on obtaining a legacydefining nuclear deal. North Korea responded by calling the offer a “very interesting suggestion.”
Presidential visits to the DMZ are traditionally carefully guarded secrets for security reasons. White House officials couldn’t immediately say whether Kim had agreed to meet with Trump.
“All I did is put out a feeler, if you’d like to meet,” Trump said of the message to Kim. He added, somewhat implausibly: “I just thought of it this morning.”
Later, after arriving in Seoul from a summit in Osaka of world leaders, Trump offered no further insight into his planned trip to the heavily fortified border. “It will be very interesting,” he said.
Trump said he’d “feel very comfortable” crossing the border into North Korea if Kim showed up, saying he’d “have no problem” becoming the first U.S. president to step into North Korea.
It was not immediately clear what the agenda, if any, would be for the potential third TrumpKim meeting. “If he’s there we’ll see each other for two minutes,” Trump predicted.
Such a spectacle would present a valuable propaganda victory for Kim, who, with his family, has long been denied the recognition they sought on the international stage. Despite Trump’s comments Saturday, he had told the Hill newspaper in Washington in an interview last week that he would be visiting the DMZ and “might” meet with Kim. The paper reported it had withheld Trump’s comments, citing security concerns by the White House.
North Korea’s first vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, said the meeting, if realized, would serve as “another meaningful occasion in further deepening the personal relations between the two leaders and advancing the bilateral relations.”
An aide to South Korean President Moon Jaein told reporters after the presidents had dinner that they agreed a possible TrumpKim meeting would be a “good thing.” Moon talked about Kim’s commitment to denuclearization, while Trump expressed his “amicable” views on Kim, according to the official, Yoon Dohan, who added that a meeting would help pave the way for the resumption of nuclear diplomacy. Trump’s summit with Kim in Vietnam earlier this year collapsed without an agreement for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. He became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with the leader of the isolated nation last year, when they signed an agreement in Singapore to bring the North toward denuclearization.
Substantive talks between the nations have largely broken down since then. The North has balked at Trump’s insistence that it give up its weapons before it sees relief from crushing international sanctions. Still, Trump has sought to praise Kim, who oversees an authoritarian government, in hopes of keeping the prospects of a deal alive, and the two have traded flowery letters in recent weeks.