Trump and Kim meet in Singapore

“Following the initial greeting, President Trump and Chairman Kim will participate in a one-on-one meeting, with translators only, an expanded bilateral meeting, and a working lunch”, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

“President Moon and President Trump agreed Trump and Kim will be able to make a great achievement if the two leaders come together to find a common denominator through frank discussions”, Blue House spokesman Kim Eu-kyeom told reporters.

While Trump highlighted Pyongyang’s problematic human rights record in January during his State of the Union address – where he also said the “depraved character of the North Korean regime” demonstrated the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose – the president has skirted those concerns since agreeing in March to Kim’s suggestion of a summit.

Officials remain uncertain what will come out of Tuesday’s unprecedented summit, the first of its kind between a sitting USA president and the leader of North Korea.

DPRK stands for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Trump entered the Kim summit less than a week after an acrimonious Group of 7 meeting in which he and longtime American allies argued about trade policy.

Rodman spoke from Singapore, where he had traveled to play his part in the summit between the two nations.

Mr Trump said he was feeling “really great” and Mr Kim said North Korea and the U.S. had overcome obstacles to be able to hold talks, saying it “was not easy to get here”.

Trump and Kim arrived not long ago on Singapore’s Sentosa Island, the site of their unprecedented summit.

It also has two presidential suites, so Trump and Kim won’t have to duke it out over who gets the big room. That uncertainty appeared to carry over to the summit itself, where a “tight pool” was designated to witness Trump’s and Kim’s initial meeting.

Details were not shared about how the discussions have progressed so far and Trump and Kim have yet to meet face-to-face.

Critics of Trump, however, were quick to point out that the US president had given legitimacy to a murderous regime responsible for the starvation and death of tens of millions of people.

This was the first meeting between the two leaders – one a 71-year-old billionaire businessman democratically elected to head a superpower; the other a boyish heir handed the reins of a brutally oppressive dictatorship.

The White House declared Monday that the talks “have moved more quickly than expected” and said Trump planned to depart later Tuesday, earlier than had been expected. Past nuclear deals have crumbled over North Korea’s reluctance to open its doors to outsiders.

Shortly before the summit began, Mr Trump tweeted that his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, had suffered a heart attack and was in hospital. I asked him, I said I have something to say from North Korea, and he brushed me off.