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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announces at a daily briefing on Sept. 10 that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed holding a second summit in his letter to US President Donald Trump, and that both sides are working on organizing the details. (Reuters)
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Kim Jong-un proposed second summit in letter to Trump
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed holding a second summit with US President Donald Trump in a private letter, and the two sides are already working on organizing the summit, the White House said on Sept. 10.
The negotiations between North Korea and the US, which had been at a standstill, have been put back into the fast lane by the special envoy delegation that South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent to Pyongyang early this month and by the delivery of a personal letter from Kim. The big question is whether Kim and Trump can pull off a second summit just a few months after they held the first ever North Korea-US summit in Singapore on June 12.
“The President has received the letter from Kim Jong Un. It was a very warm, very positive letter,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders during the daily briefing on the afternoon of Sept. 10.
“The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the President, which we are open to and are already in the process of coordinating that.”
When asked about whether the second summit would be held in Washington, Sanders said, “We’ll let you know when we have further details, but [that’s] certainly something that we want to take place and we’ll [. . .] continue to work on making that happen.”
“I don’t have any specifics on the exact timing,” Sanders said in response to a question about when the second summit might happen. “These conversations for the second meeting are taking place now. And as we have more details, I’ll certainly let you know.”
The White House’s eagerness to announce that discussions with North Korea about a second summit are already underway suggests that Trump is strongly determined to pull off the meeting. This is leading some analysts to think that North Korea and the US – which have been pushing each other to take the first step, the North wanting an end-of-war declaration and the US steps toward denuclearization – to speculate that a “top-down” decision by the two leaders could lead to a compromise.
Second NK-US summit may occur as early as October
If such a compromise does occur, the second North Korea-US summit might take place as early as October, prior to the US midterm elections, which will be held on Nov. 6.
These predictions are bolstered by the positive overtures toward North Korea that Sanders made during the briefing. After noting that North Korea had not displayed any ICBMs during its military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of its government on Sept. 9, Sanders said, “The President has achieved tremendous success with his policies so far. And this letter was further evidence of progress in that relationship.”
Sanders continued to stress the military parade even when a reporter asked if there was any progress on denuclearization that gave Trump as a reason for optimism, aside from “these really nice words from Kim and a parade”: “The most recent parade this weekend [was] one of the first times [. . .] they weren’t highlighting their nuclear arsenal. We consider that a sign of good faith.”
“The letter from Kim Jong-un to the President certainly showed a commitment to continuing conversations, continuing to work on the progress that they have had since their meeting just a few months ago. And also, a continued commitment to focus on denuclearization of the Peninsula.” This was consistent with Trump’s tweet that North Korea’s military parade was a “big and very positive statement from North Korea. Thank you Chairman Kim.”
On Sept. 7, Trump excitedly told reporters that a letter from Kim was on its way, which he expected to be a “positive” letter. Pompeo had presumably briefed Trump about this letter, which was passed from North Korean to American officials at the military demarcation line at Panmunjom on Sept. 6.
By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
