Trump: ‘looking forward to meeting Kim Jong-un’

WASHINGTON DC, Jan 2, 2019, Yonhap. It was Washington’s first response to Kim’s annual New Year’s Day speech, which was watched closely for a hint of the future of stalled denuclearization talks between the North and the U.S., reported the Korea Times.

The portion of the speech Trump referenced, quoting PBS, was where Kim claimed to have taken “various practical measures” after “declar(ing) at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them.”

Should the U.S. respond with “trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions,” Kim said the countries’ relations will “develop wonderfully at a fast pace.”

But a continuation of the current U.S. policy of sanctions and pressure may compel the North to “find a new way” to defend the country’s interests and achieve peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, he said.

The two leaders held their first summit in Singapore in June and agreed to “work toward” complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12, 2018, at Singapore’s Capella Hotel in what is the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Yonhap

The U.S. president has touted progress with the North and heaped praise on Kim, saying the two “fell in love.”

A second summit is being planned for January or February, according to Trump.

Kim said in his address that he is “ready to meet the U.S. president again anytime, and will make efforts to obtain without fail results which can be welcomed by the international community.”

Victor Cha, senior adviser and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted the timing of the speech.

“Making this speech that appears open to negotiating after a period of stalled diplomacy at the end of 2018, may be seen as an opportunity to have the leaders meet. At least that is what the negotiators will want to do,” he told Yonhap.

“But for skeptics, this is the same North Korea ― feigning negotiations over denuclearization but really wanting tension reduction with de facto acceptance as a responsible nuclear weapons state who will not transfer or produce additional capabilities.”