Trump looks forward to new meeting with Kim
Thursday, 3 January 2019
WASHINGTON, Jan 02 (Agencies): President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he looked forward to another summit with Kim Jong Un, a day after the North Korean leader warned Pyongyang could take a different approach to nuclear talks if US economic sanctions persist.
"I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential!" Trump said in a brief tweet.
The US leader made his comment after citing news coverage of Kim's New Year remark that the North had declared it would neither make nor test nuclear weapons any longer, or proliferate them.
At a summit with Trump in Singapore in June, the two signed a vaguely worded pledge on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
But progress has since stalled with Pyongyang and Washington arguing over what that means.
Trump has previously said that he hoped to have a second meeting with Kim early this year.
But the North is demanding relief from the multiple sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and has condemned US insistence on its nuclear disarmament as "gangster-like."
Kim, in his New Year speech, said that if the US continues with sanctions "we may be compelled to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state."
He added he was willing to meet Trump at any time and would seek "to obtain without fail results which can be welcomed by the international community."
Meanwhile, top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States on Wednesday held phone talks over the New Year's speech by Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Seoul's foreign ministry said.
Lee Do-hoon, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, talked over phone with Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for DPRK policy, for about 30 minutes.
During the phone talks, Lee and Biegun assessed the DPRK leader's New Year address, in which Kim said he would go toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and was ready to meet with US President Donald Trump at any time.