Media experts caught off guard.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the second time in a month on Saturday to discuss carrying out the peace commitments they reached in their first summit and Kim’s potential meeting with President Trump, Moon’s office said.
South Korean presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said Moon will reveal the outcome of his surprise meeting with Kim on Sunday. The presidential Blue House did not immediately provide more details.
The meeting at a border truce village came hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a summit between Trump and Kim following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw Trump cancel the highly anticipated meeting before saying it’s potentially back on. Trump later tweeted that the summit, if it does happen, will likely take place on June 12 in Singapore as originally planned.[…]
North Korea issued an unusually restrained and diplomatic response to Trump, saying it’s still willing to sit for talks with the U.S. “at any time, (in) any format.”
“The first meeting would not solve all, but solving even one at a time in a phased way would make the relations get better rather than making them get worse,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency, which mainly targets external audience.
Notably, the statement did not appear in Saturday’s edition of Rodong Sinmun, the official mouthpiece of the North’s ruling party that’s widely read by North Koreans.
The newspaper instead focused on Kim Jong Un’s visit to the coastal town of Wonsan to inspect the construction of a beachfront tourist complex. Kim ordered the complex to be finished by April 15 next year to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Un’s comments published by the newspaper did not include any mention of his potential meeting with Trump.
Analysts say Kim’s diplomatic outreach in recent months after a flurry of nuclear and missile tests in 2017 indicates he is eager for sanctions relief to build his economy and the international legitimacy the summit with Trump would provide. But there’s also skepticism whether Kim will ever agree to fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he likely sees as his only guarantee of survival.