President Trump will meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore, he announced Thursday.
“The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace,” Trump announced via tweet.
The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2018
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just returned from his second trip to North Korea after he secured the return of three American prisoners detained there and brought them back to the U.S.
Pompeo was also making preparations for the upcoming summit between North Korea and the U.S.
“We think relationships are building with North Korea,” Trump has said. “We’ll see how it all works out. Maybe it will [work out], maybe it won’t.”
“It can be a great thing for North Korea, South Korea and Japan,” Trump added.
Kim recently said he would abandon his country’s nuclear weapons if the United States agrees to end the Korean War and promises not to invade, a South Korean official said after the historic North-South summit in April.
North Korea would also invite journalists and experts from the U.S. and South Korea to observe when North Korea shuts down its nuclear test site sometime in May, the South Korean official said.
After their meeting, the leaders of North and South Korea signed an agreement to officially end the Korean War after 65 years, which will be declared later this year, and to work to denuclearize and establish a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met in the Demilitarized Zone, in the border village of Panmunjom, and signed the “Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification on the Korean Peninsula.”
The meeting rightfully garnered global attention, and it was the first time a sitting North Korean leader had stepped foot in South Korean territory since the Korean War began. The Korean military conflict technically lasted from 1950 to 1953 but was ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.
While there are talks of peace, tensions with North Korea still exist, as Kim recently said that President Trump and his administration are deliberately provoking Pyongyang, and that potential peace talks don’t mean North Korea is showing signs of weakness.
“It would not be conducive to addressing the issue if the U.S. miscalculates the peace-loving intention of the DPRK (North Korea) as a sign of ‘weakness’ and continues to pursue its pressure and military threats,” a North Korean spokesman told the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
