Trump and Kim spoke for almost an hour
US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Sunday in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea, and agreed to resume denuclearisation talks.
Trump arranged the ‘historic meeting’ on Twitter. However, officials said both the leaders had been talking about meeting each other for the last one month.
Trump and Kim spoke for almost an hour at Freedom House on the South Korean side of the DMZ. They agreed to designate negotiators to resume denuclearisation talks in the next few weeks.
They were later joined by South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, in an unprecedented three-way gathering.
This the first meeting between the two leaders at the DMZ, and Trump’s third meeting with Kim. Talks between the two fell apart at a summit in Hanoi in February.
Kim had conducted a short-range projectile test in May —North Korea’s first test since 2017 — signalling that it was willing to escalate tensions to put pressure on the US. Trump downplayed the tests during the meeting in an effort to keep his relationship with Kim.
Denuclearisation of North Korea is Trump’s key foreign policy
North Korean denuclearisation is a key element of Trump’s foreign policy. While Trump has previously insisted that sanctions will be lifted only after full denuclearisation, he has lately taken a softer stance to restart negotiations.
In 2018, Kim and Moon met at the DMZ and agreed to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. The meeting was highly symbolic, but a few concrete policy actions were agreed upon.
Troops from North Korea and South Korea have been stationed at the DMZ since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953. However, no peace treaty was ever signed between the two nations and they technically still remain at war.
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