The truce between North Korea and United States is forging fast as
President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are likely to meet in Singapore
next month. North Korea had been belligerent in world politics and had
ambitious nuclear weapons build up that has infuriated the West over the
years.
The country had earned a pariah status and slammed with several sanctions.
The sudden turn-around of 37-year-old Kim Jong Un to seek peace has
been warmly embraced by USA and South Korea prompting much interest
across the globe.
Trump said at the weekend that the two sides had settled on a date
and location for the summit — the first between a sitting US president
and a North Korean leader — without providing details.
“We’ll be announcing it soon,” Trump told reporters.
The landmark summit will take place in “mid-June”, South
Korea’s Chosun Ilbo daily reported Monday, citing diplomatic sources who
quoted Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The newspaper suggested that the possibility of Singapore hosting
the landmark meeting had “increased greatly”, after a decision by Trump
to host South Korean president Moon Jae-in at the White House later this
month, without giving further explanation.
Bolton met his South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong in
Washington late last week to discuss plans for both locations, according
to local media reports.
A similar report on the weekend from South Korea’s Yonhap news
agency also said Singapore was firming as the favoured location for the
summit.
Trump had previously suggested that the demilitarised zone between
the two Koreas — the site of a recent summit between Kim and Moon —
could also be an appropriate venue for his meeting with the North’s
leader.
Other possible sites reportedly included Mongolia and Switzerland.
Preparations for the landmark meeting have gained momentum since
the Korean summit late last month, which saw Pyongyang and Seoul promise
to pursue the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula and a formal
peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War.
The grandson of Kim Il-sung, the first leader of North Korea from
1948 to 1994 and Kim Jong Un was the first North Korean leader to have
been born after the country’s founding.
Before taking power in 2011, Kim was rarely seen in public, and many of the activities of Kim and his government remain unknown.
Even details such as what year he was born, and whether he did
indeed attend a Western school under a pseudonym, are difficult to
confirm.
-NAN