Home  >  News

Trump and Kim to hold historic meeting

  • A pedestrian walking in front of a TV screen in Tokyo flashing a news report on Trump and Kim agreeing to meet for talks. Photo courtesy: AFP

By Andrew BEATTY

Washington (AFP) -- President Donald Trump has agreed to a historic first meeting with Kim Jong Un in a stunning development in America's high-stakes nuclear standoff with North Korea.


Chung had recently returned from Pyongyang, where he met Kim, who, he said "expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible."

Trump hailed "great progress" in the push to persuade Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program.

"Meeting being planned!" he tweeted. "Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time."


News of the summit, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in said was "like a miracle", is the latest step in a quickening diplomatic detente.

North and South Korea exchanged envoys as Pyongyang sent a delegation to the Winter Olympics in the South, which Seoul had dubbed the "Peace Games" and which saw the two countries marching under a unified flag.


Just months ago, Trump mocked Kim by calling him "little rocket man". Kim returned the favor by describing Trump as "mentally deranged" and a "dotard."


In the last two decades, they have been engaged in what is perhaps the world's most dangerous nuclear standoff, with 30,000 US military personnel stationed just over the border in the South.

Paradigm shift

Pyongyang's long race to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the continental United States has proved a problem for successive US administrations.


The White House said in a statement that strategy of "maximum pressure" would stay in place, for now.





It is a gambit fraught with risk for Trump. On multiple occasions, Kim's father Kim Jong Il dangled the prospect of talks and denuclearization as a means of buying time, easing sanctions and dividing South Korea from its allies.

However, Trump's decision also carries historic echoes of Richard Nixon's visit to communist China or Barack Obama's overture to Cuba, both of which offered the hope of better ties.

Opening or trap?

The table was set for the announcement on Tuesday when South Korea announced the North had stated there was "no reason" to hold on to its nuclear weapons "if military threats towards the North are cleared and the security of its regime is guaranteed."

In the past North Korea has indicated that security guarantees mean the departure of US forces from the Korean peninsula and the end of a mutual defense treaty with the South.

The North was open to "frank" talks with the United States on denuclearization and would suspend missile and nuclear tests while dialogue was under way, Chung said after returning from a meeting in Pyongyang.

Seoul also announced the two Koreas would hold a historic summit in the Demilitarized Zone next month.

Trump welcomed the move as "very positive", though Vice President Mike Pence said the US position towards North Korea would not change "until we see credible, verifiable, and concrete steps toward denuclearization."

Japan, a key regional ally, hailed the Thursday summit announcement which it said was "on the premise of denuclearisation", but added there would be no let up in the diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.

South Korea's Moon was ebullient.

"The May meeting will be recorded as a historic milestone that realized peace on the Korean Peninsula," he said.

But analysts were damning, saying a US-North Korea summit was a win for Kim.

"It essentially provides him equal status with the US president and strengthens his bid to have North Korea be recognized as a de facto nuclear power," said Evan Medeiros, of the Eurasia Group thinktank, and a former Asia advisor to Barack Obama.

It "will not lead to North Korea's denuclearization. Instead, it will enhance the stature and legitimacy of Kim's regime, give him more time to develop his nuclear weapons arsenal, and enable him to more effectively seek sanctions relief."

Jeffrey Lewis, who heads the respected East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies said Trump was dancing to Kim's tune.

"This is literally how the North Korean film "The Country I Saw" ends," he wrote on Twitter. "An American President visits Pyongyang, compelled by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs."




All rights reserved. Contact us : [email protected]