Pompeo says North Korea could get ‘unique’ security guarantees

“The senior officials of the party and government sincerely wished Kim Jong Un good successes in the first summit meeting and talks between the DPRK and the United States and his safe return”, the KCNA said. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the plans and insisted on anonymity.

He said his perception of Kim – a “bad guy with nuclear weapons” – had improved considerably following his two meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

“People call it a historic summit but.it is important to understand that this summit was available to any USA president who wanted to do it and the point is no US president wanted to do this, and for good reasons”, said Christopher Hill, a former lead US nuclear negotiator with North Korea.

“I think within the first minute I’ll know”, Trump said. Trump had earlier tweeted about the “excitement in the air!”

He and Trump are set to meet Tuesday morning in the first summit of its kind between a leader of North Korea and a sitting U.S. president. They’ll later allows their teams to join them.

The US will offer North Korea “unique” security assurances in return for denuclearisation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

The relative speed with which state media reported on Kim’s arrival suggests a some confidence that the meeting will go well – or at least well enough.

SECURITY CONCERNS Many questions remain unanswered, however, including whether the North Koreans have robust enough communication systems to make sure no one panics and launches an attack, said Vipin Narang, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. He released a photograph from inside the room of North Korean vice foreign minister Choi Sun-hee smiling across the table at the U.S. lead negotiator, the Philippines ambassador Sung Kim.

Mr Trump’s first year in office was marked by bitter exchanges between himself and Mr Kim – as North Korea conducted several ballistic missile tests in defiance of the worldwide community. But a few North Korean cameramen, dressed in dark suits, were allowed on the street, just behind the police barricades.

Kim may also be seeing the gamble in a light never considered by his autocratic father and grandfather because of “his determination to modernize North Korea”, according to Ryan Haas, an Asia expert at the John L. Thornton China Center.

Trump and Kim arrived in Singapore hours apart Sunday.

“The entire world is watching the historic summit between [North Korea] and the United States of America”, Kim told Lee through an interpreter when they met Sunday.

Two days after arguing with western allies at the G-7 summit over trade, President Trump is prepared to declare victory in talks with nuclear-armed North Korea – regardless of what happens. “I think things could work out very nicely”.

Rodong ran images showing Kim disembarking the Air China jet he used to fly to the summit as well as him meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Donald Trump had previously referred to the North Korean leader as a “madman with nuclear weapons”.

“We’ve got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow”, Trump said at a luncheon with the Singapore prime minister on Monday. Trump seemed to be working actively to define expectations downward following an Oval Office meeting last month with North Korean vice chairman Kim Yong Chol. “But I’ve said it many times: Who knows? That’s what I do”.

Totalitarian North Korea’s governing ideology of “Juche”, which champions self-sufficiency, has brought little but decades of economic stagnation, widespread poverty and, at times, starvation.

Plans for the meeting almost foundered after Trump abruptly withdrew in May, citing North Korea’s “open hostility” during negotiations.

All of that is almost impossible under strict global sanctions, which is why the North Korean leader needs more than just a photo-op with the president of the U.S.

The MFA also said Lee will meet President Trump separately on Monday.