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‘Say hello’: Trump invites Kim to DMZ meeting
OSAKA, Japan, June 29, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump on
Saturday invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet for a historic
handshake at the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, in what he
said was a spontaneous offer.
The spectacular invitation on Twitter caught observers by surprise. If Kim
accepts, it would be the third meeting between the leaders of the two former
enemies amid efforts to denuclearise the Korean peninsula.
The official KCNA news agency quoted Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui as
saying the offer was “a very interesting suggestion” but that no official
request had been received.
Trump lobbed the shock offer on Twitter from the G20 summit in Osaka,
saying: “if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the
Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!”
The president later told reporters he “just thought of it this morning” but
the offer came amid a recent flurry of diplomacy over North Korea’s nuclear
programme after a Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi collapsed without an agreement.
Speculation grew that something was afoot when US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo skipped a G20 dinner late Friday without giving a reason.
“We’ll see. If he is there, we will see each other for two minutes,” said
Trump, adding: “I just put out a feeler because I don’t know where he is
right now, he may not be in North Korea.”
“We seem to get along… That’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” added the
president.
North Korea’s Choe said if a meeting took place it would be “another
meaningful occasion in further deepening the personal relations between the
two leaders and advancing the bilateral relations.”
Although Twitter is banned from the general public in the North, those in
leadership, including Kim Jong Un, should have access to social media
including Twitter, said Ahn Chan Il, a former defector and now a researcher
in Seoul.
“They have a separate office that regularly monitors them,” he said.
The South’s presidential Blue House said nothing had been confirmed at this
point and added: “Our position, which hopes for a dialogue between the US and
North Korea to take place, remains unchanged.”
After several months of public silence, an exchange of letters between the
leaders appears to have thawed the deep-freeze and raised hopes for a third
summit after a historic first tete-a-tete in Singapore on June 12, 2018 and
the second in Hanoi in February.
MORE/SSS/1150 hrs
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Trump will be heading to Seoul immediately after the G20 summit in Osaka,
where on Saturday he held a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President
Xi Jinping in a bid to ease trade tensions between the world’s top two
economies.
According to South Korea’s Unification minister, Kim and Trump have
exchanged a total of 12 letters since the beginning of last year, with Kim
the more assiduous suitor in their nuclear bromance, penning eight of those.
Last week, Xi visited Pyongyang for a highly symbolic summit with Kim.
Analysts say that diplomatic breakthroughs often follow on from such
meetings.
The Hanoi summit foundered amid disagreements on what the North would be
willing to give up in exchange for sanctions relief.
The two sides blamed each other for the breakdown but Washington has said
they are prepared to meet the North Koreans at any time without preconditions
to keep diplomacy alive.
– ‘Nothing could happen’ –
Apparently voicing his frustration at the diplomatic stalemate, Kim
responded by firing off several short-range “projectiles” that Trump shrugged
off.
The North last carried out a missile test in November 2017, before a rapid
diplomatic rapprochement saw tensions ease on the peninsula.
The DMZ was witness to extraordinary scenes during a summit between Kim and
South Korean President Moon Jae-in when the North’s young leader invited his
counterpart to step across the border in an emotional symbol of unity after
decades of aggression.
Referring to the DMZ, Trump said: “By the way, you talk about a wall, when
you talk about a border, that’s what they call a border.”
“Nobody goes through that border… that’s called a real border.”
Writing on Twitter, analyst Ankit Panda of the Federation of American
Scientists said: “I guess the best case outcome is that a meeting happens and
some of the non-denuclearisation matters that had been agreed in Hanoi… see
progress.”
He cited a possible declaration of the end of the Korean War that
technically ended with a ceasefire, as well as the establishment of liaison
offices as a first step towards normalising ties between the historic foes.
“Of course, nothing could happen at all too,” said Panda.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1151 hrs