Kim summit: President Moon could attend, says South Korea

The Republican firebrand pulled out of the summit with Kim last week, but announced shortly afterwards that he had reconsidered his position and that U.S. and North Korean officials would be meeting to finalise details.

The White House’s latest characterization of the meeting as “expected” appears to be a further sign that it could go ahead.

He said on Saturday the USA was still considering the 12 June date for the summit in Singapore.

Both the state department and South Korea’s foreign ministry said officials were in discussions at the Korean village of Panmunjom, which straddles the border inside the demilitarised zone (DMZ).

North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA said tunnels of the underground facility were collapsed and all structures were exploded “in order with transparency” as Chinese, Russian, UK, US and South Korean reporters looked on.

“Hey Donald, I’m already in Singapore, waiting for you to turn up”, Howard X said.

Mr. Trump’s team is now trying to accomplish that in the next 15 days.

Mr Joseph Hagin, a deputy White House chief of staff, is leading a separate delegation to Singapore, to make decisions on the arrangements for the potentially historic but off-again, on-again summit between the North Korean leader and President Donald Trump.

Moon later announced that Kim had reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearization and willingness to meet with Trump. Pyongyang has rejected unilateral disarmament and has always couched its language in terms of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. They discussed their shared goal of achieving “the complete and permanent dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missile programs”.

“A lot of people are working on it”, Trump said.

Pence had remarked that North Korea could wind up like Libya – a country mired in chaos since it gave up its nuclear ambitions and saw its longtime dictator killed years later by USA -backed rebels.

The April 27 inter-Korean summit, which produced a vague declaration to work toward denuclearization and a peace treaty for the Korean Peninsula, was meant to serve as a springboard for talks between the US and North Korean leaders.

Even critics of Trump’s speedy approach to the talks, talks of a potential Nobel Prize, and subsequent return to vows of the use of military force if North Korea doesn’t comply with USA terms, said they expect the talks to move forward in order to avoid losing ground.

“Chairman Kim agreed on that”, he added.

Hours after meeting with relatives of the abductees on the day, Abe said he “conveyed their feelings” to Trump over the phone.

South Korea is reviewing ways to address North Korea’s security concerns, including converting the current armistice into a peace agreement, a senior Moon administration official said on Sunday.

First Vice Foreign Minister Kim released immediately a conciliatory statement Friday, expressing great regret over the cancellation of the summit, and a surprise second summit upon the request of Pyongyang was held between President Moon Jae-in and North’s Kim on Saturday.

Importantly, they’ll also have to decide what exactly the two men are going to talk about. “And we’ll be here satirizing the whole situation”, said Howard.

A U.S. official told Reuters that Sung Kim, the former USA ambassador to South Korea, would lead an American delegation to meet North Korean officials at the border.

Before he cancelled the summit, Trump did not rule out an incremental approach that would provide incentives along the way to the North.