The planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has raised a California son’s hope that a meeting will lead to the release of his father, held nearly a year by the reclusive state, the son said on Sunday.
Trump agreed on Thursday to accept an invitation from the North Korean leader to meet by May following months of tough talk by both men and rising tensions over Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear and missile programs.
Three Americans are being held by North Korea, which has in the past used visits by former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to release other Americans it had in custody.
The family of Tony Kim, 59, pictured, one of the three Americans being held captive by North Korea, are hopeful that progress on his release could be made when Trump meets Kim Jong Un
f the meeting takes place—and that is by no means guaranteed—it will be the first-ever encounter between a sitting American President and a leader of North Korea
While there has been no sign the planned summit will lead to the release of Americans Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song or Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, word of the unprecedented talks was welcomed by Sol Kim, the son of Tony Kim.
‘I am hopeful. It is hard to say any other feeling,’ Sol Kim, a 27-year-old student in California, said in a telephone interview.
U.S. officials have previously assured him his father’s plight will be raised at appropriate times, he said.
‘But as a family member, I hope that it is one of the top priorities’ of a face-to-face meeting, he said.
The U.S. government has had regular talks with the family but has not contacted them since the plans for the summit were announced, he said.
Over the last two decades, North Korea has held more than a dozen Americans as captives, typically using them as bargaining chips in its dealings with Washington.
The North Koreans highly value the appearance of a meeting with the U.S. and might have agreed to more as part of the agreement including the release of the three Americans
But that dynamic changed after U.S. student Otto Warmbier, 22, died last summer shortly after his release from a 17-month detention.
His death led to new U.S. sanctions on North Korea, and a White House official said it served ‘to remind the world of the atrocities that happen in North Korea.’
Tony Kim, 59, worked at the foreign-funded and Christian- affiliated Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
He was detained at Pyongyang International Airport in April 2017 while trying to leave the country.
North Korean state media reported that he was arrested for committing ‘hostile acts’ against the government.
Kim Dong Chul,left, was arrested in North Korea in October 2015. He has confessed to trying to steal military secrets from the isolated state. Tony Kim, 58, right, is also being held
Kim Hak Song, thought to be 55, also taught at PUST. He managed the school’s experimental farm and was detained in May 2017 while traveling by train from Pyongyang to Chinese border town Dandong
A message attributed to him from 2015 on the website of a Korean-Brazilian church in Sao Paulo said he was a Christian missionary trying to help the North Korean people learn to become self-sufficient.
Kim Dong Chul, a Korean-American missionary formerly of Fairfax, Virginia and thought to be 62, was sentenced in March 2016 to 10 years of hard labor for subversion.
Kim said he set up a business in the North Korean special economic zone of Rason in 2008, the North’s officials KCNA news agency reported.
Trump’s sudden decision to meet with Kim stunned even members of his own administration. On Sunday, U.S. officials defended the decision and said the United States expects North Korea to halt all nuclear and missile testing in advance of any meeting.
‘As a family, any news, any update and any progress is good progress and it is hopeful,’ said Sol Kim.
Who are the American men being held by North Korea?
Kim Dong Chul, a Korean-American missionary formerly of Fairfax, Virginia and thought to be 62, was sentenced in March 2016 to 10 years of hard labor for subversion.
He admitted to committing ‘unpardonable espionage’ under the direction of the U.S. and South Korean governments and deeply apologized for his crimes, the North´s KCNA news agency said.
Other Americans taken captive by North Korea have said after their release they were forced into making confessions.
In an interview with CNN conducted in Pyongyang in January 2016, Kim said he was arrested in October 2015 after spying on behalf of what he called ‘South Korean conservative elements’ who approached him while he was working at a trading business in Rason, a city in northern North Korea near the Chinese border.
A North Korean defector later said she had met Kim in the United States and that he had told church gatherings he was a missionary helping North Koreans.
Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, spent a month teaching accounting at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) before he was detained at Pyongyang International Airport in April 2017 while trying to leave the country.
The university’s chancellor said the arrest was not connected to PUST and that Kim, 59, had been involved with other activities, including helping an orphanage.
North Korean state media reported that he was arrested for committing ‘hostile acts’ against the government.
Kim Hak Song, thought to be 55, also taught at PUST, which was founded by evangelical Christians and opened in 2010.
The university’s co-founder said that Kim, who managed the school’s experimental farm at the college of agriculture and life sciences, was detained in May while traveling on a train from Pyongyang to the Chinese border town of Dandong.
In February 2015, Kim wrote in a fundraising post on the website of a Korean-Brazilian church that he was a Christian missionary devoted to helping North Korea’s people learn to be self-sufficient. North Korean state media said he also was arrested on suspicion of committing ‘hostile acts’ against the government.