Trump-Kim Singapore summit

Trump-Kim summit to focus on denuclearisation and peace: North Korean media

SINGAPORE/SEOUL • North Korean media said yesterday that the country's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump will discuss "building a permanent and durable peacekeeping mechanism" on the Korean peninsula as well as the North's denuclearisation.

The summit would focus on "establishing new relations" between North Korea and the United States as well as "building a permanent and durable peacekeeping mechanism on the Korean peninsula, the issue of realising the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual concern", the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

This was "required by the changed era", and the summit was happening "under the great attention and expectation of the whole world", KCNA reported.

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Workers' Party, featured Mr Kim's departure for Singapore in a full-colour two-page spread, declaring on the front page that he was leaving in a Chinese plane for a "historic summit" with the US President.

Mr Kim arrived in Singapore on Sunday.

Separately yesterday, South Korean daily Joongang Ilbo, citing a source in Singapore, said Mr Kim has invited Mr Trump to North Korea to hold a second summit next month.

The invitation was in a letter delivered by Mr Kim's right-hand man, General Kim Yong Chol, to the White House on June 1.

The consensus for a second summit was also reached during multiple working-level meetings between the two sides, Joongang Ilbo said.

The source was cited as saying that the Pyongyang meeting, if it materialises, will follow up on the finer points of North Korea's denuclearisation, which the two leaders are expected to broach at their first summit in Singapore today.

If the second summit goes ahead, it may be followed by a summit in Washington in September, the report said.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 12, 2018, with the headline Trump-Kim summit to focus on denuclearisation and peace: North Korean media. Subscribe