Tag Archives: North Korea

North Korean film on Kim’s Singapore trip reveals new focus on economy

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk after lunch at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has produced a film on leader Kim Jong Un’s summit meeting with President Donald Trump this week, feeding, as one would expect, a fervid cult of personality but also seemingly highlighting his dream of economic development.

The 42-minute film, titled “Epochal meeting that pioneered new history between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States”, aired on North Korean state television on Thursday.

It shows the highlights of Kim’s three-day trip to the city-state of Singapore, including exchanges during his historic summit with Trump on Tuesday, and visits he made to some of Singapore’s top sites that evening.

Rigidly controlled North Korean state media usually give ordinary people little exposure to the affluence of their Asian neighbors.

For years, media have relentlessly extolled the successes of their state, and its leaders from the Kim family, proudly defying the evil United States and its lackey allies, even as many ordinary North Koreans starved.

But this film lavished praise on prosperous, capitalist Singapore, lauding the “clean, beautiful and advanced” nation and suggesting it had lessons to offer.

“Our comrade supreme leader said he is eager to learn the excellent knowledge and experiences in various fields from your country,” the state media presenter cited Kim as telling Singapore officials.

Kim was briefed on urban planning and lauded the island nation’s “world-class” cargo-handling capacity, as well as its well-equipped ports and its economy.

One analyst said the film was underscoring Kim’s stated pledge to make the economy a priority, after he had announced the achievement of a long-held ambition to develop nuclear weapons.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives in Singapore, June 10, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information via REUTERS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives in Singapore, June 10, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information via REUTERS

MESSAGE OF HOPE?

Kim shifted his focus at a ruling party congress in April, abandoning the parallel pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development he had expounded since taking power in 2011, to focus instead exclusively on development.

“It’s to give the message that ‘We could be as rich if we develop the market economy’,” Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector who now runs a Seoul-based think-tank, said of the film’s message.

“Ordinary North Koreans might feel some discontent for now, seeing Kim and his aides enjoying overseas travel when they’re struggling to feed themselves, but this film could give them hope at the same time.”

The film made much of Kim’s surprise evening outing to some of Singapore’s most famous waterfront sites, among them a rooftop bar and infinity swimming pool at one of its plushest hotels, where surprised guests filmed him with camera phones.

In one scene, Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, was seen walking with him along a promenade, clearly impressed with the high-rise skyline.

Inevitably, Kim is portrayed in the film as a global peacemaker, sitting and smiling as an equal with the U.S. president derided just months earlier by state media as a “lunatic old man”.

Trump, accompanied by Kim, was shown returning the salute of Defence Minister No Kwang Chol, who was clad in his military uniform, raising questions among Trump’s critics back home.

The film also showed Trump offering Kim a peek inside the U.S. presidential limousine, known as “The Beast,” calling it a gesture of “special respect and goodwill”.

Such images reflected a new confidence in the North Korean leadership that the isolation was over and they had at last been accepted as legitimate members of the international community.

But the message could confound some ordinary North Koreans, said a South Korean official.

“It was recognition that North Korea has really craved, but it might also be a double-edged sword for Kim,” said the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“Imagine how perplexed ordinary North Koreans could be by the image of the evil United States so deeply rooted in their minds, and then this sudden mood of a thaw.”

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and Jeongmin Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Trump says North Korea no longer a nuclear threat; North highlights concessions

North Koreans watch the displayed local newspapers reporting the summit between the U.S. and North Korea at a subway station in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo taken by Kyodo June 13, 2018. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat, nor is it the “biggest and most dangerous problem” for the United States, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday on his return from a summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The summit was the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader and followed a flurry of North Korean nuclear and missile tests and angry exchanges between Trump and Kim last year that fueled fears of war.

“Everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office,” Trump said on Twitter.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk in the Capella Hotel after their working lunch, on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. Susan Walsh/Pool via Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk in the Capella Hotel after their working lunch, on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. Susan Walsh/Pool via Reuters

“There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”

On Tuesday, Trump told a news conference after the summit that he would like to lift sanctions against the North but that this would not happen immediately.

North Korean state media lauded the summit as a resounding success, saying Trump expressed his intention to halt U.S.-South Korea military exercises, offer security guarantees to the North and lift sanctions against it as relations improve.

Kim and Trump invited each other to their respective countries and both leaders “gladly accepted,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

“Kim Jong Un and Trump had the shared recognition to the effect that it is important to abide by the principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action in achieving peace, stability and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” KCNA said.

Trump said the United States would stop military exercises with South Korea while North Korea negotiated on denuclearization.

“We save a fortune by not doing war games, as long as we are negotiating in good faith – which both sides are!” he said on Twitter.

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Trump’s reasoning for halting the exercises was “ridiculous”.

“It’s not a burden onto the American taxpayer to have a forward deployed force in South Korea,” Graham told CNN.

“It brings stability. It’s a warning to China that you can’t just take over the whole region. So I reject that analysis that it costs too much, but I do accept the proposition, let’s stand down (on military exercises) and see if we can find a better way here.”

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he hoped all parties could “grasp the moment of positive changes” on the peninsula to take constructive steps toward a political resolution and promoting denuclearization.

“At this time, everyone had seen that North Korea has halted missile and nuclear tests, and the United States and South Korea have to an extent restricted their military actions. This has de facto realized China’s dual suspension proposal,” he told a daily news briefing.

“When it comes to Trump’s statement yesterday that he would halt South Korea and the United States’ military drills, I can only say that China’s proposal is indeed practical and reasonable, is in line with all sides’ interests and can resolve all sides’ concerns.”

China, North Korea’s main ally, last year proposed what it calls a “dual suspension”, whereby North Korea suspend nuclear and missile tests, and South Korea and the United States suspend military drills.

U.S.-North Korea relations: https://tmsnrt.rs/2l2UwW7

SURPRISE

There was some confusion over precisely what military cooperation with South Korea Trump had promised to halt.

The U.S.-South Korean exercise calendar hits a high point every year with the Foal Eagle and Max Thunder drills, which both wrapped up last month. Another major exercise is due in August.

The United States maintains about 28,500 soldiers in South Korea, which remains in a technical state of war with the North after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce not a peace treaty.

Trump’s announcement on the exercises was a surprise even to South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, who has worked in recent months to help bring about the Trump-Kim summit.

Asked about Trump’s comments, South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters there was a need to seek measures that would help improve engagement with North Korea but it was also necessary to confirm exactly what Trump had meant.

Moon will be chairing a national security meeting on Thursday to discuss the summit.

Trump’s administration had previously ruled out any concessions or lifting of sanctions without North Korea’s commitment to complete, verifiable and irreversible steps to scrap a nuclear arsenal that is advanced enough to threaten the United States.

But a joint statement issued after the summit said only that North Korea “commits to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is to lead the U.s. side in talks with North Korea to implement outcomes of the summit, arrived in South Korea on Wednesday, to be greeted by General Vincent Brooks, the top U.S. commander in South Korea, and U.S. Charge d’Affaires Marc Knapper.

Pompeo had a meeting with Brooks before heading to Seoul, according to a pool report. He is set to meet Moon on Thursday and hold a three-way meeting with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono.

On Tuesday, just after Trump’s surprise announcement, a spokesman for U.S. Forces Korea said they had not received any instruction to cease joint military drills.

Although the Pentagon said Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was consulted, current and former U.S. defense officials expressed concern at the possibility the United States would halt the exercises without an explicit concession from North Korea lowering the threat.

CRITICS IN THE UNITED STATES

Critics in the United States said Trump had given away too much at a meeting that gave Kim long-sought international standing.

The North Korean leader had been isolated, his country accused of widespread human rights abuses and under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“For North Korea, they got exactly what they wanted,” said Moon Seong-mook, a former South Korean military official current head of the Unification Strategy Centre in Seoul.

“They had a summit as a nuclear state with Kim on equal turf with Trump, got the United States to halt joint military exercises with South Korea. It’s a win for Kim Jong Un.”

Japan’s Minister of Defence Itsunori Onodera said that, while North Korea had pledged denuclearization, no concrete steps had been taken and Japan would not let down its guard.

“We see U.S.-South Korean joint exercises and the U.S. military presence in South Korea as vital to security in East Asia,” Onodera told reporters. “It is up to the U.S. and South Korea to decide about their joint exercises. We have no intention of changing our joint drills with the U.S.”

Japan would only start shouldering the costs of North Korea’s denuclearization after the International Atomic Energy Agency restarts inspections, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

The Singapore summit did not get top billing in the main state news outlets in China.

The English-language China Daily said in an editorial that while it remained to be seen if the summit would be a defining moment, the fact it went smoothly was positive.

“It has ignited hopes that they will be finally able to put an end to their hostility and that the long-standing peninsula issues can finally be resolved. These hopes should not be extinguished,” it said.

(Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin, Joori Roh and David Brunnstrom in SEOUL, Tim Kelly in TOKYO, Phil Stewart in WASHINGTON, Christian Shepherd in BEIJING and John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

North Korea seen looking to China, not U.S., for help in any economic transformation

FILE PHOTO: A vendor is pictured in a shop in a newly constructed residential complex after its opening ceremony in Ryomyong street in Pyongyang, North Korea April 13, 2017. Picture taken April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/File Photo

By Cynthia Kim and Christian Shepherd

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump may have promised that North Korea will become “very rich” on the back of American investment if Pyongyang ditches nuclear weapons but economists and academics who have studied the isolated country say it is China not the U.S. that will be the engine of any transformation.

The nearest template would not be based on American-style capitalism, but China’s state-controlled market economy first championed by Deng Xiaoping, who became China’s leader in 1978, these experts said. China was just coming out of the turmoil of the 27-year reign of Mao Zedong, a period during which capitalism was banned and private businesses and property were seized by the state and placed under collective ownership.

Deng introduced wrenching reforms that are widely regarded as creating the foundations of China’s economic miracle in the past 40 years. The changes were massive, the growth phenomenal, but most importantly the Chinese Communist Party has achieved all of this while not only retaining power but increasing its control over the country.

And in the run up to the unprecedented summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday in Singapore, it has been China that Pyongyang has been increasingly turning to.

Kim has made two visits to meet Xi since March, while a high-level delegation from his ruling Workers’ Party toured China’s industrial hubs in an 11-day visit in May that focused on China’s high-tech urban transport and latest scientific breakthroughs.

That delegation went to China only weeks after Kim declared an end to nuclear and missile tests and vowed an all-out effort toward “socialist economic construction.” Chinese media labeled Kim’s announcement North Korea’s “opening and reform”, shorthand for Deng’s policies, sparking a flurry of investment in housing in Dandong, the Chinese border town.

“Kim is talking to Trump because he needs to get the United States to back off sanctions. After that, headlines will be all about Kim and Xi Jinping,” said Jeon Kyong-man, an economist at the Institute for Korean Integration of Society, with reference to the Chinese president.

China is already North Korea’s most important ally and biggest trade partner. And since Kim assumed power in 2011 the trade relationship has become even more important. China now represents more than 90 percent of Pyongyang’s trade, making it just about North Korea’s only economic lifeline.

CHINA EYES NORTH KOREA’S “OPENING” .

Stagnating economic growth in China’s northeastern rustbelt has also spurred interest in ramping up Chinese economic ties with North Korea, according to Adam Cathcart, an expert on China-North Korea relations at Leeds University in the United Kingdom.

China’s model of shifting from a planned economy to a market economy is attractive for Pyongyang because it was achieved with political, economic and social stability, according to Zhang Anyuan, chief economist at Dongxing Securities in Beijing.

“Taking into consideration geographic location, economic system, market size, economic development stage, China-North Korean economic cooperation has advantages that are irreplaceable and hard to replicate,” Zhang said.

But Cathcart said that progress on economic liberalization would likely be slow because North Korea will want to be careful about the increased political risks that could come from relaxing restrictions on the currency and migration.

As well as China, North Korea may also look to other economies where tight top-down control has been kept, including Vietnam or even the ‘chaebol’ business structures of South Korea, which could allow something closer to “a capital dictatorship,” according to Cathcart.

Xi, under intense pressure from Trump, started enforcing sanctions strictly in the second half of 2017. By March this year, China imported no iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea for a sixth month in a row, in line with U.N. Security Council sanctions.

That has hurt North Korea’s coal-intensive heavy industries and manufacturing sectors. But more importantly, plunging trade with Beijing has been “killing the most thriving part of the economy” – unofficial markets where individuals and wholesalers buy and sell mostly Chinese-made consumer goods and agricultural products, Jeon said.

“More than anything, it was China’s decision to enforce sanctions that squeezed the economy and made removing of the sanctions an urgent task for Kim,” he said.

MOSQUITO-NET STYLE

Even after sanctions are lifted, North Korea will likely pursue state-managed growth because loosening controls is potentially destabilizing for the regime, says Kim Byung-yeon, an economics professor at Seoul National University. “It could leave Kim Jong Un with less than half the power he has now.”

As part of efforts to maintain control, any opening could initially be limited to “special economic zones,” where Pyongyang has sought to combine its cheap labor with China’s financial firepower and technological know-how, according to BMI Research, a unit of Fitch Group.

The Wonsan Special Tourist Zone in the east coast, or the suspended inter-Korean factory park in the North’s border city of Kaesong are some other examples Kim might pursue to maintain state controls over the economy, experts say.

In Wonsan, Kim has already built a ski resort and a new airport to turn the city of 360,000 people into a billion-dollar tourist hotspot.

“These are the sorts of projects that are most likely to get underway first if the sanctions are eased,” BMI Research said.

Jeon says this is “mosquito-net style” reform – similar to Deng Xiaoping’s model – with limited foreign investment and market liberalization contained within firm strictures of state control.

Deng championed a string of special economic zones along China’s east coast where unique local legislation encouraged foreign investment in manufacturing joint-ventures that sold to export markets, while protecting Chinese industries from going head-to-head with multinationals.

“Deng designated Shenzhen as a special economic zone and made that sleepy fishing village to a manufacturing hub of the world,” Jeon said. “Kim will be eager for those, especially as he will want minimal changes to other parts of the economy.”

(Additional reporting by Jeongmin Kim and Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL, Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Martin Howell)

Trump, Kim agree on denuclearization, U.S. promises security guarantees

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Steve Holland, Soyoung Kim and Jack Kim

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged at a historic summit on Tuesday to move toward complete denuclearization, while the United States promised its old foe security guarantees.

The start of negotiations aimed at banishing what Trump described as North Korea’s “very substantial” nuclear arsenal could have far-reaching ramifications for the region, and in one of the biggest surprises of the day, Trump said he would stop military exercises with old ally South Korea.

But Trump and Kim gave few other specifics in a joint statement signed at the end of their summit in Singapore, and several analysts cast doubt on how effective the agreement would prove to be in the long run at getting North Korea to give up its cherished nuclear weapons.

“President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The two leaders had appeared cautious and serious when they arrived for the summit at the Capella hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa, a resort island with luxury hotels, a casino and a Universal Studios theme park.

Body language expert said they both tried to project command as they met, but also displayed signs of nerves.

After a handshake, they were soon smiling and holding each other by the arm, before Trump guided Kim to a library where they met with only their interpreters. Trump had said on Saturday he would know within a minute of meeting Kim whether he would reach a deal.

Trump later told a news conference he expected the denuclearization process to start “very, very quickly” and it would be verified by “having a lot of people in North Korea”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean officials would hold follow-up negotiations “at the earliest possible date”, the statement said.

Despite Kim announcing that North Korea was destroying a major missile engine-testing site, Trump said sanctions on North Korea would stay in place for now.

John Hopkins University’s North Korea monitoring project 38 North said last week North Korea had razed a facility for testing canister-based ballistic missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un his car, nicknamed "The Beast", during their walk around Capella hotel after a working lunch at a summit in Singapore, June 12, 2018, in this still image taken from video. Host Broadcaster/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. BROADCASTERS: NO USE AFTER 72 HOURS; DIGITAL: NO USE AFTER 30 DAYS.

U.S. President Donald Trump shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un his car, nicknamed “The Beast”, during their walk around Capella hotel after a working lunch at a summit in Singapore, June 12, 2018, in this still image taken from video. Host Broadcaster/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. BROADCASTERS: NO USE AFTER 72 HOURS; DIGITAL: NO USE AFTER 30 DAYS.

Trump said the regular military exercises the United States holds with South Korea were expensive and provocative. His halting of the drills could rattle South Korea and Japan, which rely on a U.S. security umbrella.

Trump said the exercises would not be revived “unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should”.

Earlier, Kim said he and Trump had “decided to leave the past behind. The world will see a major change”.

However, several experts said the summit failed to secure any concrete commitments by Pyongyang for dismantling its nuclear arsenal. They also noted the statement did not refer to human rights in one of the world’s most repressive nations.

TRADING FOR A PROMISE

Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow at Washington’s Foundation for Defense of Democracies think-tank, said it was unclear if negotiations would lead to denuclearization, or end with broken promises, as had happened in the past.

“This looks like a restatement of where we left negotiations more than 10 years ago and not a major step forward,” he said.

Daniel Russel, formerly the State Department’s top Asia diplomat, said the absence of any reference to the North’s ballistic missiles was “glaring”.

“Trading our defense of South Korea for a promise is a lopsided deal that past presidents could have made but passed on,” he said.

North Korea has long rejected unilateral nuclear disarmament, instead referring to the denuclearization of the peninsula. That has always been interpreted as a call for the United States to remove its “nuclear umbrella” protecting South Korea and Japan.

People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on summit between the U.S. and North Korea, in Seoul, South Korea, June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on summit between the U.S. and North Korea, in Seoul, South Korea, June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

The document made no mention of the sanctions on North Korea and nor was there any reference to a peace treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which killed millions of people and ended in a truce.

But the joint statement did say the two sides had agreed to recover the remains of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action, so they could be repatriated.

Trump said China, North Korea’s main ally, would welcome the progress he and Kim had had made.

“Making a deal is great thing for the world. It’s also a great thing for China,” he said.

China, which has opposed North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, said it hoped North Korea and the United States could reach a basic consensus on denuclearization.

“At the same time, there needs to be a peace mechanism for the peninsula to resolve North Korea’s reasonable security concerns,” China’s top diplomat, state councillor Wang Yi, told reporters in Beijing.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the Kremlin had a positive assessment of the summit but “the devil is in the details”, the TASS news agency reported.

If the summit does lead to a lasting detente, it could fundamentally change the security landscape of Northeast Asia, just as former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 led to the transformation of China.

But Li Nan, senior researcher at Pangoal, a Beijing-based Chinese public policy think-tank, said the meeting had only symbolic significance.

“There is no concrete detail on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the provision of security guarantees by the United States,” Li said. “It is too early to call it a turning point in North Korea-U.S. relations.”

The dollar retreated after jumping to a 3-week high but global shares crept higher on news of the agreement.

Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2l2UwW7

HARD NEGOTIATOR

Trump said he had formed a “very special bond” with Kim and relations with North Korea would be very different in future. He called Kim “very smart” and a “very worthy, very hard negotiator”.

Just a few months ago, Kim was an international pariah accused of ordering the killing of his uncle, a half-brother and hundreds of officials suspected of disloyalty. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are imprisoned in labor camps.

Trump said he raised the issue of human rights with Kim, and he believed the North Korean leader wanted to “do the right thing”.

Trump also said U.S. college student Otto Warmbier did not die in vain days after he was released from North Korean custody in 2017, as his death helped initiate the process that led to the summit.

“I believe it’s a rough situation over there, there’s no question about it, and we did discuss it today pretty strongly … at pretty good length, and we’ll be doing something on it,” Trump said.

During a post-lunch stroll through the gardens of the hotel where the summit was held, Trump said the meeting had gone “better than anybody could have expected”.

Kim stood silently alongside, but he had earlier described the summit as a “a good prelude to peace”.

Trump also rolled out what amounted to a promotional video starring the two leaders before the talks, which was watched by the North Korean officials on an iPad.

As the two leaders met, Singapore navy vessels, and air force Apache helicopters patrolled, while fighter jets and a Gulfstream 550 early warning aircraft circled high overhead.

Within North Korea, the summit is likely to go down well.

“Signing the joint statement would show North Korean citizens that Kim Jong Un is not a leader just within North Korea but also in international society, especially with his position equivalent to Trump,” said Ahn Chan-il, a defector from North Korea who lives in the South.

(Additional reporting by Dewey Sim, Aradhana Aravindan, Himani Sarkar, Miral Fahmy, John Geddie, Joyce Lee, Grace Lee, Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom in Singapore and Christine Kim in Seoul; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel)

Who has Kim Jong Un’s ‘nuclear button’ in Pyongyang while he’s away?

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – When Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday for perhaps the most significant nuclear talks since the Cold War, the American president will have his link to the U.S. nuclear arsenal nearby at all times.

As the leader of a newly minted nuclear state, much less is known about how Kim maintains control of his nuclear arsenal while he travels.

Kim began the year by declaring to the world that “a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office,” which was widely interpreted as an allusion to his personal control over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Trump fired back in a tweet, saying “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

When the two meet in Singapore for high-stakes nuclear negotiations, Trump will be accompanied, as always, by a staffer carrying his “button” in the form of the “nuclear football” containing equipment used to authorize a strike.

North Korea is one of the most insular states in the world and command and control of its nuclear facilities is kept within a tight, impenetrable circle.

Additionally, Kim – who came to power in 2011 – has only just begun making trips outside North Korea. He has been to Beijing twice and has briefly crossed the frontier at the Demilitarized Zone with South Korea to meet its president. Singapore will be the furthest he is known to have traveled since taking over.

But analysts who closely watch North Korea believe it is unlikely Kim would have come to Singapore without being confident of the arsenal’s security – and the ability to order its use.

“We don’t know how developed North Korea’s secure communications capabilities are, so whether Kim Jong Un will be within easy reach of his National Command Authority during his stay in Singapore is an open question,” said Andrew O’Neil, a North Korea nuclear policy expert at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.

“That said, given that most assume… North Korea’s nuclear command, control, communications and intelligence is configured to promote a high degree of centralization in Kim’s decision-making, it beggars belief that Kim would not be within secure reach to authorize a possible launch if required,” O’Neil added.

Kim likely delegated authority to watch over the arsenal to one of a number of trusted North Korean officials who stayed in Pyongyang, including Choe Ryong Hae, one of several senior leaders who saw Kim off at the airport as he departed for Singapore, said Michael Madden, a leadership expert with the 38 North website, which monitors North Korea.

“Kim can authorize or approve a missile strike while he is away,” Madden said. “There’s a protocol for launches.”

Trusted officials would maintain control of fixed telecommunications hotlines in the country, and there is likely a code system to activate the systems involved in launching North Korea’s ballistic missiles.

“There are only certain designated facilities where these communications can be activated,” Madden said

North Korea’s missile program: https://tmsnrt.rs/2t6WEPL

SECURITY CONCERNS

Many questions remain unanswered, however, including whether the North Koreans have robust enough communication systems to make sure no one panics and launches an attack, said Vipin Narang, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.

“Its command and control structure while Kim is traveling is unlikely to be robust enough for him to be able to reliably issue or stop launch sequences,” he said.

He said that was because North Korea was likely to have configured its nuclear forces to permit rapid authorization to launch in order to offset the risk of a first strike from the United States.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Trump, Pompeo positive ahead of North Korean summit; officials meet to close differences

U.S. President Donald Trump flanked by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly attend a lunch with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and officials at the Istana in Singapore June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Jack Kim and Steve Holland

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore could “work out very nicely” as officials from both countries sought to narrow differences on how to end a nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula.

But U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo injected a note of caution ahead of the first-ever meeting of U.S. and North Korean leaders on Tuesday, saying that it remained to be seen whether Kim was sincere about his willingness to denuclearize.

Last-minute talks between the two sides were held in the tropical city-state aimed at laying the groundwork for the summit between Trump and Kim, a meeting almost unthinkable just months ago when the two were exchanging insults and threats that raised fears of war.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shake hands during a meeting at the Istana in Singapore June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. President Donald Trump and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shake hands during a meeting at the Istana in Singapore June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

But after a flurry of diplomatic overtures eased tension in recent months, the two leaders are now headed for a history-making handshake that U.S. officials hope could eventually lead to dismantling of a North Korean nuclear program that threatens the United States.

Offering a preview to reporters on the eve of the summit, Pompeo said it could provide “an unprecedented opportunity to change the trajectory of our relationship and bring peace and prosperity” to North Korea.

However, he played down the possibility of a quick breakthrough and said the summit should set the framework for “the hard work that will follow”, insisting that North Korea had to move toward complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

Pyongyang, though, has shown little appetite for surrendering nuclear weapons its considers vital to the survival of Kim’s dynastic rule.

Sanctions on North Korea would remain in place until that had happened, Pompeo said. “If diplomacy does not move in the right direction … those measures will increase.”

“North Korea has previously confirmed to us its willingness to denuclearize and we are eager to see if those words prove sincere,” he said.

The White House later said discussions with North Korea had moved “more quickly than expected” and Trump would leave Singapore on Tuesday night, after the summit. He had earlier been scheduled to leave on Wednesday.

Kim is due to leave on Tuesday afternoon.

Trump arrived in Singapore on Sunday after a blow-up over trade with other members of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations in Canada,

The escalating economic clash between Washington and some of its closest global partners cast a cloud over Trump’s efforts to score a major foreign policy win in nuclear talks with North Korea, long one of America’s bitterest foes.

People gather outside the Istana in Singapore June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su

People gather outside the Istana in Singapore June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Although gaps remain over what denuclearization would entail, Trump sounded a positive note in a lunch meeting with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

“We’ve got a very interesting meeting … tomorrow, and I just think it’s going to work out very nicely,” Trump said.

It was a far cry from last year when Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” and mocked Kim as “little rocket man,” Kim denounced the U.S. president as the “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”

Kim, who also arrived on Sunday, remained ensconced in the heavily guarded St Regis Hotel, where he is staying. There was also no sign of his sister, Kim Yo Jong, who has accompanied him to Singapore.

Some people were grumbling in the wealthy city-state because of traffic jams caused by the summit and the cost of hosting two leaders with massive security needs. Lee has said the summit would cost Singapore about S$20 million ($15 million), more than half of which would go on security.

“Thanks PM Lee for spending $20 million of taxpayers’ money, which can … help a lot of needy families in Singapore to survive,” posted one Facebook user. Others complained about the traffic jams downtown.

Lee said the cost was worthwhile.

“It is our contribution to an international endeavor which is in our profound interest,” he told reporters on Sunday.

‘NEW ERA’

Trump and Kim are staying in separate hotels in the famous Orchard Road area of Singapore, dotted with high-rise luxury apartment blocks, offices and glittering shopping malls. Traffic was held up in the steamy midday sun and scores of bystanders were penned in by police when Trump went to meet Lee.

Similar scenes were seen on Sunday when Kim and Trump arrived in the city, and when Kim went to meet Lee. Their hotels are cordoned off with heavy security.

Commenting for the first time on the summit, North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency said the two sides would exchange “wide-ranging and profound views” to re-set relations. It heralded the summit as part of a “changed era”.

Discussions would focus on “the issue of building a permanent and durable peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean peninsula, the issue of realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual concern”, KCNA said.

In the lead up to the summit, North Korea rejected any unilateral nuclear disarmament, and KCNA’s reference to denuclearization of the peninsula has historically meant that Pyongyang wants the United States to remove its “nuclear umbrella” protecting South Korea and Japan.

Many experts on North Korea, one of the most insular and unpredictable countries in the world, remain skeptical Kim will ever completely abandon nuclear weapons. They believe Kim’s latest engagement is aimed at getting the United States to ease the crippling sanctions that have squeezed the impoverished country.

A Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. side was entering the talks with a sense of optimism and an equal dose of scepticism given North Korea’s long history of developing nuclear weapons.

“We will not be surprised by any scenario,” said the official.

The official said Trump and Kim would hold a one-on-one meeting on Tuesday that could last up to two hours. He described it as a “get to know you plus” meeting.

Later, they would be joined by their respective negotiating teams for discussions that could last another hour.

The summit’s venue is the Capella hotel on Sentosa, a resort island off Singapore’s port with luxury hotels, a Universal Studios theme park and man-made beaches.

Trump initially touted the potential for a grand bargain with North Korea to rid itself of a nuclear missile program that has advanced rapidly to threaten the United States.

But he has since lowered expectations, backing away from an original demand for North Korea’s swift denuclearization.

He has said the talks would be more about starting a relationship with Kim for a negotiating process that would take more than one summit.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Soyoung Kim, Dewey Sim, Aradhana Aravindan, Himani Sarkar, Kim Coghill, Robert Birsel, Miral Fahmy, Joyce Lee, Grace Lee, Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom; Christine Kim in SEOUL; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; and Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Neil Fullick)

As Kim arrives in Singapore, no North Korean comrades in sight

FILE PHOTO: A view of the entrance of the North Korean embassy in Singapore May 24, 2018. Picture taken May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

By John Geddie and Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Stella Choi, the principal of a Korean language school in a drab tower in downtown Singapore, works just across the elevator lobby from the modest suites that make up North Korea’s embassy.

Yet the South Korean national, who runs the iSpeak Korean Language Centre, says she has neither seen nor spoken to any of her Northern neighbors or people entering the embassy since they moved in two years ago.

Choi’s experience is consistent with the extremely low profile Singapore’s small community of North Koreans has kept in recent years as diplomatic pressure on their home country made traveling and working abroad increasingly difficult.

But they have disappeared in recent years as U.N. sanctions tightened around Pyongyang, and Singapore has been among the countries that have dutifully implemented resolutions to cut trade ties, ban transactions with North Korean banks and cancel the work passes of its citizens.

North Korea’s place in the world – and that of its diaspora – comes into focus in Singapore next week, when the city-state hosts the first ever summit between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will discuss ending the North’s nuclear weapons and missile programs in return for diplomatic and economic incentives.

Singapore, a global trading and financial hub, was once home to a close-knit group of a few dozen North Korean diplomats and businessmen responsible for channelling money, fuel and goods to the secretive state.

While it still maintains diplomatic ties, North Korea’s embassy has moved from a three-storey property in a lively neighborhood of heritage shop-houses to its present unassuming home.

“I hope to see them one day. Since the North and South Korean relationship is getting better, I may even be able to speak to them,” said Choi.

Reuters has visited the North Korean embassy multiple times over the last year but on all but one occasion there appeared to be nobody there. Reuters did once meet the embassy’s first secretary, Ri Pyong Dok, while he was entering the embassy in February 2017, but he declined comment.

In a call in recent weeks to the embassy to ask about preparations for the summit, a North Korean staffer also declined comment.

The Singapore foreign ministry has four North Korean officials and their spouses in its list of diplomatic and consular staff as of June 2018.

STRATEGICALLY MANAGED

“The sanctions and the pressure that was put on by the U.S. and its allies were definitely … key motivating forces that encouraged him (Kim Jong Un) to consider engaging more, and to come out and have this summit,” said Nicholas Fang, director of security and global affairs at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

North Korea has always strategically managed its expatriate population, mainly sending them to allies like China and Russia, where they feel they will not be corrupted by Western ideals.

Singapore is probably the most diplomatically neutral place where they’ve based people historically – more for trade reasons than diplomacy, said John Kim, a Korean-American businessman who advises a non-profit offering training in entrepreneurship and business in North Korea.

Kim said he had not spoken to a North Korean in Singapore in around five years. The last person John Kim spoke to told him there were around 50 North Koreans operating in the city-state, mainly in industries like shipping, although there are no official figures of the size of the community.

In contrast, there are about 20,000 South Koreans living in Singapore.

In November, Singapore suspended all trade with North Korea to comply with tightening U.N. regulations.

In March, Singapore said it had revoked the work permits of all remaining North Koreans in the country.

A long-time South Korean resident of Singapore who did not want to be named said until a few years ago, groups of North Koreans would come into South Korean-run restaurants for barbecue dinners and would sometimes strike up casual conversations with the South Korean patrons or staff.

They would be relaxed and friendly, though there was occasionally tension in the banter, reflecting the rivalry between the two states, he said.

One more prominent North Korean figure in Singapore was Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of the current leader who was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur airport last year.

A socialite, he often drank at a plush bar on the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel or in one of the city-state’s many karaoke joints, according to one of his friends, who declined to be named, citing safety reasons.

The friend said Kim Jong Nam was down-to-earth, self-deprecating and open to jokes about his family connections.

“We would always ask, ‘So Kim, what do you think about communism?’ and he’s was always saying, ‘I’m all about peace and love.”

(Reporting by John Geddie, Fathin Ungku and Jack Kim; Editing by Sam Holmes and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korea’s three new military leaders are loyal to Kim, not policies

FILE PHOTO North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the construction site of the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area as Kim Su-gil (3rd L), newly appointed director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People's Army, looks on, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang. KCNA/via REUTERS/Files

By Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s new top three military officers are known for their unquestioning support of leader Kim Jong Un and are flexible enough to accept the massive changes that may come from any deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, people who follow the secretive country say.

They replaced older, more conservative officers who have been recently sacked, according to a senior U.S. official and North Korea leadership analysts in Seoul.

As Washington pursues a negotiated end to Pyongyang’s nuclear program, U.S. officials believe there was some dissent in the military about Kim’s negotiations with South Korea and the United States, a complete reversal of the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and historic hostility. It was not clear if the sacked officers were responsible.

Citing an unidentified intelligence official, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said No Kwang Chol, first vice minister in the defense ministry, had replaced Pak Yong Sik as the defense chief, while Ri Yong Gil had returned as the army’s chief of general staff in place of Ri Myong Su.

The appointments could not be immediately confirmed.

North Korean media had earlier reported that Army General Kim Su Gil had succeeded Kim Jong Gak as director of the army’s powerful General Political Bureau, one of the most senior positions in the country.

The changes are a shock because they take place so close to each other and come just ahead of the scheduled June 12 summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore.

Some analysts said Kim was replacing older officers who were wedded to the country’s nuclear doctrine with loyalists who would follow any changes he may make following the summit.

“There would be a denuclearization roadmap coming out of the summit with Trump, and it would be burdensome for Kim to have hawks who could be agitated by any desertion of the nuclear program,” said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.

INSURANCE WHILE AWAY

Trump wants North Korea to “denuclearize” in return for relief from economic sanctions. Pyongyang sees its nuclear weapons as vital to its survival but Kim has said he plans to focus on economic development.

The moves are also in line with Kim’s years-long efforts to consolidate power by purging senior officers and promoting trusted younger advisers to the politburo and other core positions.

The new officers could also provide some insurance against any attempt to seize power while Kim is away at the summit, experts say.

“All these guys are Kim Jong Un people,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at Johns Hopkins University’s 38 North website. “Kim Jong Un is going to put people in place he can trust, who are loyal to him.”

In addition to being hardcore loyalists, Madden said the three officers were experienced in dealing with foreigners, which was seen as a plus point. But it was not immediately clear whether any of them would accompany Kim to Singapore.

Kim Su Gil, 68, is a four-star Army general who is one of Kim Jong Un’s most trusted aides, accompanying him on various military inspections and public events.

He was among those involved in the purge and execution of Kim Jong Un’s powerful uncle, Jang Song Thaek, in December 2013. Then he was tapped to lead the party’s Pyongyang chamber in early 2014, a job which Madden said was meant for “housecleaning” the administration of Jang’s confidants.

Kim’s appointment to the General Political Bureau is part of Kim Jong Un’s drive to expand the party’s control over the military, said Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at CNA, a non-profit research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia.

PARTY CREDENTIALS

All of the newly promoted officials are younger than their predecessors, even though they are all in their 60s.

The three were also named in May 2016 as alternate members of the ruling Workers’ Party politburo – the opaque, all-powerful governing body where top state affairs are decided.

Ri Yong Gil served as chief of staff from 2013 to 2016 until he reportedly fell from grace for a brief period, the analysts said.

In the early 2000s, Ri was commander of an Army unit that defends the perimeter around Pyongyang, a sensitive position that Gause said is traditionally “personally selected” by the leader of the country.

In March 2013, he was seen attending a late night meeting convened by Kim to order missile units on “standby” to strike U.S. and South Korean military installations after a U.S. strategic bomber flew over South Korea.

In February 2016, he was briefly demoted to deputy chief and three stars from four for an unspecified reason. South Korean intelligence officials said he had been executed for corruption and abuse of power, only to see him appear at a major party assembly as a politburo candidate three months later.

No Kwang Chol, the 62-year-old relatively less known new defense chief, previously headed the Second Economic Committee, which oversees defense production including the nuclear and missile programs.

“This is where you would send someone you could trust,” said Hong Min, head of North Korea research at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

“No is a person who has come to the fore in the Kim Jong Un era, as a up-and-coming and trusted aide. It is not strange at all if he becomes defense minister.”

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Jeongmin Kim; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Two Koreas make progress, agree to talks on military, family reunions

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Ri Son Gwon during their meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea, June 1, 2018. Yonhap via REUTERS

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – The two Koreas agreed at a high-level meeting on Friday to hold talks this month on military issues and reunions of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War, they said in a statement.

The meeting in the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic activity intended to sustain a thaw in relations with the isolated North.

North Korea had called off a planned meeting with the South last month in protest against U.S.-South Korean air combat exercises before South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un put the process back on track during a surprise second summit on Saturday.

While the two Koreas work to improve their ties, North Korea is in talks with the United States on a proposed summit between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, tentatively set for June 12 in Singapore.

Friday’s talks were led by South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s committee for the peaceful reunification of the country, and were a follow-up to an agreement reached during the first summit between Kim and Moon in April.

Military talks between the old rivals will take place on June 14 on the northern side of Panmunjom, and a separate session on sports exchanges on the southern side on June 18, the two sides said.

Talks about reunions of families divided by the war, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, would be held on June 22 at the Mount Kumgang resort north of the border.

Family reunions are an emotional issue that could help restore trust but they have been stalled in the absence of political engagement, said Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who was in Seoul to discuss plans for reunions and other issues.

“With more engagement and political openings, many hurdles will be lifted,” Sy told Reuters in an interview.

The federation hopes that North Korea will allow it to provide more aid. An estimated 10 million North Koreans or 40 percent of the population need humanitarian assistance, Sy said.

Both Koreas also agreed to an early launch of a liaison office in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, where they operated a factory park until its closure during tension in 2016, they said in a statement.

Cho and Ri also agreed to hold regular meetings to expedite various working-level talks which would include cooperation on railways, forests and culture.

‘GRAVE SITUATION’

During the talks, Ri blamed Cho for having brought about a “grave situation” that led to the North’s cancellation of last month’s talks.

Ri did not give specific information but Pyongyang has lashed out at Seoul for allowing Thae Yong Ho, a former North Korean diplomat to Britain who defected to the South in 2016, to launch a book in parliament in which he describes Kim as “impatient, impulsive and violent”.

The North also demands the repatriation of a dozen North Korean restaurant workers, who came to the South in 2016 via China. The North says they were abducted by the South, but it says they defected freely.

“We don’t talk about what happened in the past. You just need to not repeat it again,” Ri said.

Ri also said an unspecified issue had become “a source of mistrust” and would determine “whether a mood of reconciliation and cooperation, or mistrust and confrontation is created between the North and South”.

“It is a very serious problem,” Ri said. He did not elaborate.

In another indication the process is at times testy, Ri accused South Korean officials of misrepresenting a comment about their joint industrial zone at Kaesong.

Cho did not specify when asked about contentious issues but told reporters they did not discuss the military exercises or nuclear issues. He declined to comment on whether the North demanded the restaurant workers back.

North Korea suggested they hold a joint celebration of the anniversary of a 2000 inter-Korean summit this month in the South, an official at Seoul’s unification ministry told reporters.

But that would not be possible due to scheduling and logistics issues, Cho said.

“There were some things in common and also differences between both sides until we adopted the joint statement,” Ri said, without elaborating.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Joint Press Corps; Additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

North Korea talks heading in right direction, U.S. envoy says

North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol speaks ahead of a working dinner with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York, U.S., May 30, 2018. U.S. Department of State/Handout via REUTERS

By Steve Holland and Hyonhee Shin

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – Talks between the United States and North Korea are headed in the right direction, a top U.S. envoy said on Friday, ahead of a rare visit to the White House by a senior North Korean official.

At a planned meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, Kim Yong Chol, a close aide of Kim Jong Un, will hand over a letter from the North Korean leader as the two sides try to put a derailed summit meeting back on track.

Trump hopes to meet Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 and pressure him to give up his nuclear weapons, although he conceded on Thursday that might require more rounds of direct negotiations.

“I’d like to see it done in one meeting,” Trump told Reuters. “But often times that’s not the way deals work. There’s a very good chance that it won’t be done in one meeting or two meetings or three meetings. But it’ll get done at some point.”

In Seoul, U.S. negotiators expressed optimism after meeting their North Korean counterparts for preparatory talks at Panmunjom, on the fortified border between the two Koreas.

“We believe that we’re moving in the right direction to the ongoing series of consultations, including (U.S. Secretary of State) Pompeo’s engagement with Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol … our discussions at Panmunjom and of course the discussions in Singapore as well,” U.S Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, a veteran diplomat and expert on North Korea, told South Korea’s foreign minister, Kang Kyung-hwa.

The discussions in Panmunjom have focused on possible agenda items for Trump and Kim, while meetings in Singapore are more focused on logistics, officials said.

In a separate high-level meeting on Friday, officials from North and South Korea agreed to hold talks later this month on military issues and reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, they said.

It was not clear what North Korea’s leader wrote in his letter to Trump, and White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said late on Thursday that the details of the meeting in Washington were still being worked out.

Pompeo is slated to meet Trump at the White House at 1 p.m. (1700 GMT).

After trading threats of war last year, the two men agreed to meet for an historic summit on June 12. But Trump canceled last week, citing Kim’s “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a string of public statements.

Even as he pulled out, though, Trump urged Kim to “call me or write” if he wanted to revive the meeting.

Within a day, both sides were in new talks to save the summit, and Kim Yong Chol flew to New York this week to meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, raising hopes that the summit might be back on.

Despite saying the two sides made “real progress”, Pompeo also cautioned that there might be no quick solution.

“They’ll have to choose a path that is fundamentally different than the one that their country has proceeded on for decades. It should not be to anyone’s surprise that there will be moments along the way, that this won’t be straightforward,” he said.

NUCLEAR THREAT

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has made significant advances in recent years and poses a threat to the United States. Trump’s main goal in any talks is to eliminate that threat.

Kim has rejected previous U.S. calls for North Korea’s unilateral nuclear disarmament and argued instead for a “phased” approach to denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula. That in the past has also meant removal of the U.S. nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea and Japan.

In Pyongyang, Kim hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, while a Kremlin spokesman told reporters a summit between Russian and North Korean leaders could take place.

During his meeting with Lavrov, Kim said his will to see denuclearization on the peninsula remained “unchanged, consistent and fixed” and hoped improved North Korea-U.S. relations would be solved on a “stage-by-stage” basis.

The North Korean visit to the White House on Friday will be the first since 2000, when President Bill Clinton met senior figure Jo Myong Rok in an unsuccessful attempt to win the reclusive nation’s nuclear disarmament.

They met for 45 minutes and Jo brought Clinton a letter from Kim Jong Il, the late father of North Korea’s current leader.

Jo wore full military uniform when he was with Clinton, then donned a business suit to meet then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

To make his trip this week, Kim Yong Chol needed special permission for travel to the United States because he had been blacklisted.

South Korea has accused him of masterminding deadly attacks on a South Korean warship and an island in 2010, and U.S intelligence linked him to a cyber attack on Sony Pictures in 2014.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)