US President Donald Trump said Friday
his summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un is back on for next month,
after extraordinary Oval Office talks with a top envoy from Pyongyang.
Trump emerged after a more than
hour-long Oval Office meeting with Kim Yong Chol — a general facing US
sanctions who is Kim’s right-hand man — saying that the summit will go ahead in
Singapore on June 12 as originally planned.
While admitting that dealing with North
Korea was “going to be a process,” Trump said he believed that process would
ultimately be “successful.”
Trump said the letter from Kim,
hand-delivered by Kim Yong Chol, was “very nice” and “very interesting” — but
then said he had not opened it yet.
Nevertheless, the US president had warm
words for Pyongyang, saying the long discussions had touched on North Korea’s
denuclearization and economic development.
Trump indicated that the campaign of
“maximum pressure” was at least on hold, vowing no new sanctions while talks
are ongoing.
“The relationships are building and
that’s very positive,” he said.
In a move that is sure to worry US
allies in Japan and South Korea, Trump also said that he and his guest had
discussed US troop numbers on the Korean peninsula.
“We talked about almost everything. We
talked about a lot. And we talked about sanctions,” he said.

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