US President Donald Trump (right) and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Un. They are set to meet on June 12. PHOTOS | AFP
WASHINGTON,
Donald
Trump on Thursday revealed his historic summit with Kim Jong Un — the
first-ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader —
will take place in Singapore on June 12.
The
location and date of the landmark meeting were announced in a
presidential tweet just hours after Trump welcomed to the United States
three American prisoners released by Pyongyang.
'SPECIAL MOMENT'
"We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" Trump wrote.
The
talks, which are expected to last one day, are set to focus on North
Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.
"I think it will be a big success," Trump said as he boarded Air Force One, on his way to a political rally in Indiana.
US
officials said the release of Americans Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim
Dong-chul removed a major obstacle to the summit, providing Trump with
some tangible evidence that his twin-track policy of engagement and
"maximum pressure" was working.
"We're
not under any illusions about who these people are. We know who we are
dealing with here," said Victoria Coates, of the National Security
Council.
"But we got, up front, our people home."
The
United States and North Korea are technically still at war — a stop-gap
armistice ended the brutal three-year Korean war in 1953 and around
30,000 American troops remain in neighboring South Korea, which the US
supported in the conflict.
NEUTRAL
Singapore
will provide a neutral backdrop for the summit, avoiding some of the
security and political challenges associated with a meeting in the
Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea.
The
Southeast Asia city state has long acted as a bridge between the United
States and China, with successive prime ministers offering Oval Office
occupants their cherished geopolitical counsel.
When
Trump and Kim do sit down a month from now, the two relatively untested
leaders will be presented with a puzzle that has stymied seasoned
diplomats for decades.
A series of US
administrations have sent envoys, both official and unofficial, to
Pyongyang in the hope of stopping North Korea's provocative nuclear
weapons programme.
Former presidents
Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter visited after leaving office, multiple
rounds of non-proliferation talks have taken place, and a deal was even
signed in 1994.
But despite the
optimism of that moment, all efforts to limit North Korea's nuclear
programme have, to date, failed. And more than two decades and multiple
provocative weapons tests after the last accord, the threat from
Pyongyang has only grown.
The country
is now believed to be on the cusp of developing an intercontinental
ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead to the US
mainland.
TRUMP STAND
Trump has vowed that he will not let that happen and has demanded that North Korea give up its nukes.
So
far, the North Korean regime has made vague pledges to "denuclearize"
but has not spelled out what that means, when it would happen or how it
would be implemented.
In North
Korea's bombastic rhetoric, "denuclearization" has, for years, been a
byword for US troop withdrawals from South Korea and an excuse for
stalling.
Hardliners in the North are
believed to see possession of a nuclear weapon as the only guarantee
against US-led efforts to topple Kim's regime.
Coates
said there were no preconditions for the talks, which could yet include
other regional leaders such as the South Korean president, but concrete
steps would be welcome.
"The
president's goal is very clear — the irreversible, verifiable removal of
this nuclear weapons programme. If he doesn't see material progress to
that, there's not going to be a deal for a deal's sake," she said.
Coates
said that North Korea handing over details about its existing programme
would "set us up with a greater chance of success, anything that they
would like to do, but we haven't been signaling preconditions up until
this point."
Trump's high-profile
meeting offers a glimmer of hope of a breakthrough, according to
Republican Senator Cory Gardner, who discussed preparations for the
summit with Trump at the White House on Wednesday.
SINCE 1948
"This
is a moment for cautious optimism," Gardner told AFP. "The president
understands that there is a historic opportunity to achieve what the
world has been unable to achieve for decades."
At
the same time, Gardner said, Trump's eyes were wide open about the
risks of failure and the need to be clear that denuclearization means
abandoning nuclear weapons.
"As of last night, there was no nuance in terms of denuclearization," he said.
But
before any technical talk about reprocessed fuel rods, separated
plutonium or spent fuel removal, Trump will want to answer one basic
question — whether North Korea wants to change.
"This
is the key test," said Gardner. "I think that if Kim Jong Un wants to
find relief from 'maximum pressure' and be welcomed back to the table of
recognized global leadership, it's the only path he has."
Since
the foundation of North Korea in 1948, the country has endured war and
struggled to balance rival Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence.
Decades of financial stagnation, international sanctions, mass starvation and industrial scale human rights abuses followed.
"The road we have been down is well traveled and it's never ended well. So I hope this time is different," said Gardner.
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