President Donald Trump on Tuesday cautiously approached North Korea’s offer to freeze its nuclear program while it holds a ‘candid dialogue’ with the United States.
‘We will see what happens,’ the U.S. president tweeted, making no firm commitment to hold talks with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un.
Trump said Saturday evening that the North Koreans had reached out and his administration would be meeting with Kim’s government.
‘They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago and said, “We would like to talk.” And I said, “So would we, but you have to de-nuke, you have to de-nuke.” So, let’s see what happens,’ the president stated. ‘But we will be meeting and we’ll see if anything positive happens.’
President Donald Trump cautiously approached North Korea’s offer to freeze its nuclear program while it holds a ‘candid dialogue’ with the United States on Tuesday
South Korean news agency Yonhap said Monday that Trump was actually referring to a March 1 call with its president, Moon Jae-in, however, citing an official with the White House’s National Security Council.
A week prior, Trump signaled his openness to a conversation — if it took place ‘under the right conditions.’
‘Otherwise, we’re not talking,’ Trump told United States governors.
He commented that Kim ‘wants to talk, as of last night’ and said ‘we want to talk also.’
Trump went on to make a familiar complaint about his predecessors, blasting former President Bill Clinton and others for failing to keep North Korea in check.
‘The Clinton administration spent billions and billions of dollars. They gave them billions. They built things for them. They went out of their way, and the day after the agreement was signed, they continued with nuclear research. It was horrible.
Continuing, Trump said, ‘The Bush administration did nothing — both. The Obama administration wanted to do something. He told me it’s the single biggest problem that this country has. But they didn’t do anything.
‘And it would have been much easier, in those days, than it is now. I think most people understand that. But we’ve been very tough with them.’
North Korea has said it will not need to keep its nuclear weapons if military threats against the country are resolved and it receives a credible security guarantee, South Korea has said today.
The promise was made to a delegation of South Korean officials during a two-day visit to Pyongyang where they held talks with dictator Kim Jong-Un.
The head of the delegation also said Kim had vowed never to use nuclear and conventional weapons against South Korea, and agreed to a meeting with president Moon Jae-In in April.
North Korea also expressed willingness to hold a ‘candid dialogue’ with the United States on de-nuclearisation and diplomacy, and pledged that it would freeze its nuclear and missile testing programme while such talks with are underway.
Big step: Kim Jong Un,pictured meeting South Korean National Security Director Chung Eui-yong, in Pyongyang, has said he is ready to discuss de-nuclearisation with the U.S.
The summit talks, which are to be held at the border truce village of Panmunjom in late April, will be the third inter-Korean summit talks ever held – and the first in over a decade.
Kim Jong Un seemingly put on a charm offensive when meeting the South Korean delegation yesterday, as images released by North Korean state news shows him grinning broadly as he grasps the hand of one of the visiting officials.
He also appeared to be in a jovial mood later in the day, when he hosted a dinner with his wife, Ri Sol-Ju, where one of the officials had Kim’s sister Kim Yo-Jong as his dining partner.
The photograph of the group sat down to eat shows them at a table decorated with a floral centrepiece, and several bottles of wine and what appears to be a local alcoholic spirit in front of them.
After the delegation returned to Seoul on Tuesday, the presidential office announced that North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade in late April.
Special guests: Kim Jong Un sits next to his wife Ri Sol-Ju, with his sister Kim Yo-Jong sat to the right of one of the South Korean diplomats during a meal hosted by North Korea
Promises: Kim Jong Un, pictured during a meeting with members of South Korean delegation yesterday, said there would be no need for North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons arsenal ‘if military threats against the country are resolved’
The past two summits, one in 2000 and the other in 2007, were held between South Korea and Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, and resulted in a series of cooperative projects between the Koreas.
The head of the delegation, Chung Eui-yong, told a media briefing that North Korea had also made the surprise declaration on their nuclear arsenal and opened up for talks with the United States.
The two Koreas have now agreed to open a communication hotline between their leaders ‘to ease military tension and have close coordination’, said Chung Eui-yong, the national security advisor to President Moon.
Kim reportedly expressed his desire to ‘write a new history of national reunification’ during the dinner, which the South Korean government said lasted about four hours.
The meeting marked the first time South Korean officials have met with the young North Korean leader in person since he took power after his dictator father’s death in late 2011.
It’s the latest sign that the Koreas are trying to mend ties after one of the tensest years in a region that seems to be permanently on edge.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets members of the special delegation of South Korea’s President in this photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency
The North Korean dictatos shakes hands with South Korea’s national security director Chung Eui-yong as his sister looks on
No insight: Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government
Given the robust history of bloodshed, threats and animosity on the Korean Peninsula, there is considerable skepticism over whether the Koreas’ apparent warming relations will lead to lasting peace.
North Korea, some believe, is trying to use improved ties with the South to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions and pressure, and to provide domestic propaganda fodder for Kim.
Yesterday, North Korean state media said Kim offered his views on ‘activating the versatile dialogue, contact, cooperation and exchange’ between the countries.
Kim was said to have expressed at the dinner his ‘firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification by the concerted efforts of our nation to be proud of in the world.’
The ten-member South Korean delegation’s trip was the first known high-level visit by South Korean officials to the North in about a decade.
Envoys for South Korea led by President Moon’s national security director, Chung Eui-yong, are on a rare two-day visit to Pyongyang that’s expected to focus on how to ease a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and restart talks between Pyongyang and Washington
Mr Chung walks to board an aircraft as he leaves for Pyongyang at a military airport in Seongnam, south of Seoul, Monday
Previous warming ties between the Koreas have come to nothing amid North Korea’s repeated weapons tests and the North’s claims that the annual U.S.-South Korean war games are a rehearsal for an invasion.
Chung’s delegation included intelligence chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.
The South Korean presidential Blue House said the high-profile delegation was meant to reciprocate the Olympic trip by Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who became the first member of the North’s ruling family to come to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Kim Yo Jong, who also attended Monday’s dinner, and other senior North Korean officials met with Moon during the Olympics, conveyed Kim Jong Un’s invitation to visit Pyongyang and expressed their willingness to hold talks with the United States.
Having concluded their Pyongyang trip, Chung’s delegation is scheduled to fly to the United States to brief officials about the outcome of the talks with North Korean officials.
President Donald Trump has said talks with North Korea will happen only ‘under the right conditions.’