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US President Donald
Trump said on Monday he expected a second summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be announced “pretty soon” but that
the location had yet to be determined.
Trump, during a meeting with South Korean President Moon
Jae-in at the United Nations, said: “Chairman Kim has been
really very open and terrific, frankly. I think he wants to see
something happen.”
Moon met with Kim for a third time last week. He said
brought Trump a personal message from the North Korean leader
saying he was hoping to meet with the US president again soon.
Trump and Kim met for an unprecedented summit on June 12,
and Trump has been keen on a second meeting, even though some
US officials and most analysts say Pyongyang has yet to show
it is prepared to give up a nuclear arsenal that threatens the
United States.
Read: Trump meets with Kim Jong Un in historic summit
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a news briefing
earlier on Monday he hoped to travel back to North Korea before
the end of the year to make final preparations for a second
summit, which he said he was “confident” would happen.
“I expect I’ll be traveling to Pyongyang before too long,”
he said.
Asked if that would be before the end of the year, he
replied: “Yes. Lord willing, I’ll be traveling before the end of
the year.”
Pompeo said he was optimistic that Kim would deliver on his
pledge to denuclearize, but this would take time.
“We’re bringing the two senior leaders, the individuals who
can actually make the decisions that will move this process
forward, bring them together so we can continue to make progress
towards what the UN Security Council has demanded and what
Chairman Kim has promised he would do.
“That’s the effort. There remains work to be done. There
will be some time before we get to complete denuclearization for
sure.”
At last week’s meeting with Moon, Kim promised to dismantle
a missile site and also a nuclear complex – if the United States
took “corresponding action.”
However, while appearing to set a positive tone, the
commitments fell far short of Washington’s demands for a
complete inventory of North Korea’s weapons programs and
irreversible steps towards denuclearization.
The mood though is sharply changed from that at last year’s
UN General Assembly, when Trump threatened to “totally
destroy” North Korea and mocked the North Korean leader as
“Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission.”
North Korea’s representative to the meeting, Foreign
Minister Ri Yong Ho, responded to Trump’s UN remarks last year
by calling them “the sound of a dog barking” and warning that
North Korea could detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.
Pompeo has proposed a meeting with Ri at the General
Assembly this week.
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki
Haley said last week the two had agreed to meet but said the
meeting could take place later.
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