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Kim Jong Un will join Trump for a meeting at the Korean demilitarized zone, South Korean President Moon Jae-in says
President Trump speaks to South Korean business leaders in Seoul on Sunday. (Susan Walsh/AP)
By Seung Min Kim and
Simon Denyer
June 30 at 12:14 AM
BREAKING:
Kim Jong Un will join Trump for a meeting at the Korean demilitarized zone, South Korean President Moon Jae-in says.
President Trump also confirms he’ll meet with Kim, and says he’ll look forward to it. Trump had broadcast his offer to meet Kim at the border in a morning tweet in Osaka, Japan, at the G-20 summit on Saturday, with a senior North Korean official responding soon after that the offer was “interesting.”
This story will be updated.
SEOUL — President Trump said he will travel to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea on Sunday, and that he understands that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “very much” wants to join him there for a short meeting.
“I understand they want to meet, and I’d love to say hello,” he said Sunday morning local time, referring to North Korea and Kim. “It’s going to be very short, but we are in territory that’s very close. We don’t have to take long trips to countries, so it’s good for both of us.
“Let’s see what happens,” he added. “They are trying to work it out, not so easy.”
Trump had broadcast his offer to meet Kim at the border in a morning tweet in Osaka, Japan, at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday. A senior North Korean official responded soon after that the offer was “interesting.”
Trump will be joined at the border by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, raising the possibility of a first trilateral summit among the three leaders.
Later, Trump met Moon for a bilateral meeting, and said he expected to meet Kim at the border.
“It looks like they’re in the final stages to work out a very quick meeting, because I’ll be at the DMZ anyway, at the border,” he said. “I’ll look forward to saying hello to him, if that finally works out.”
“I guess there’s always a chance that it might not, but it sounds like the teams would like that to work out, so that’s good.”
Trump’s trip to South Korea comes four months after the breakdown of his second summit with Kim in Hanoi, but the president again boasted of his relationship with his North Korean counterpart.
“We have a very good relationship, the two of us. I don’t know beyond the two of us, but let’s say the two of us,” he said in a speech Sunday to South Korean business leaders.
Asked later about meeting Kim, Trump said it still had not been finalized.
“You don’t lose anything by speaking,” he said. “He very much wants to. We are trying to work it out.
“It will be very short, but that’s okay,” he said. “A handshake means a lot.”
Later, Trump meet Moon for a bilateral meeting, and again congratulated himself for calming tensions on the Korean Peninsula, arguing that the region would have been engulfed in war if he had not been elected president.
In the process, he again misrepresented what had been achieved, claiming that North Korea had ceased ballistic missile tests and was continuing to send back remains of U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War. In fact, North Korea has tested short-range ballistic missiles since the Hanoi summit, while the Pentagon says contacts with Pyongyang over the return of remains have ceased.
Moon, who has invested heavily in improving his country’s relationship with North Korea, also praised Trump effusively for reaching out to Kim.
“Yesterday President Trump gave a big hope to the world through his tweet,” Moon said. “Seeing that tweet made me feel that the flower of peace is blossoming on the Korean Peninsula.”
Moon will be coming to the DMZ but it is unclear if he will join in the planned meeting between Trump and Kim, with North Korea’s foreign ministry saying only last week that it did not want Seoul mediating, and telling South Korean authorities to “mind their own business at home.”
Moon made it clear he would be taking a back seat role on Sunday.
“I will come along today but the center of today’s conversation is the dialogue between North Korea and the United States,” Moon said. “I hope there would be a big progress in the dialogue between President Trump and Chairman Kim.”
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