Washington: US President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late February on Pyongyang dismantling its nuclear and missile programmes, the White House announced, here Friday.
The two leaders had met June 12 last year in Singapore for the first summit. The White House, however, did not identify a location for the second setting between the two leaders.
The announcement came after Trump met Friday with North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, for a discussion that included talk about Kim Jong-un’s unfulfilled pledge to dismantle his country’s nuclear weapons programmes. The two met in the Oval Office, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.
“President Donald J Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour-and-half, to discuss denuclearisation and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date. We continue to make progress, we continue to have conversations,” Sanders said in a statement.
The US is going to continue to keep ‘pressure and sanctions’ on North Korea until ‘we see fully and verifiable denuclearisation’, informed Sanders.
“We had very good steps and very good faith from the North Koreans with the release of hostages and other moves and so we’ll continue this conversation. And the President looks forward to it next February,” Sanders added.
The North Korean envoy arrived at the White House after a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun at a hotel here.
Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman said that in Singapore, Trump had capitulated to Kim Jong-un – handing North Korea a propaganda coup in exchange for empty words. “During a second summit, he must deliver concrete, verifiable commitments from Pyongyang,” he demanded.
Last year in Singapore, the US President had described his first-ever historic meeting with Kim Jong-un as ‘really fantastic’ and said they had agreed to ‘sign’ an unspecified document after their ‘very positive’ summit, aimed at normalising ties and complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
The US has always insisted it will accept nothing less than complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
PTI