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US President Donald Trump holds a summit with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Dublin on June 5.
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US president also mentions hopes to hold third summit with Kim Jong-un during Ireland visit
On June 5, US President Donald Trump expressed his doubts about the accuracy of reports about the execution of North Korean officials who’d been involved in the North Korea-US summit. Trump also said he hoped to hold a third summit with Kim at the appropriate time. When asked by journalists prior to the beginning of his summit in Ireland with Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar about the reported execution of the North Korean officials, Trump said, “I don’t know if the reports are correct because one of the gentlemen who we deal with [. . .] is somebody that we know well.” “He’s a strong person. And they like to blame Kim Jong-un immediately. But they said he was killed, and he wasn’t. He was at the theater the other night, so he wasn’t killed,” Trump said. “One of the people they were talking about that was supposedly executed wasn’t executed at all,” Trump emphasized. “The other four people I know nothing about. But [. . .] it’s an interesting situation.” Trump appears to have confused Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Vice Chairman (and former WPK United Front Department Director) Kim Yong-chol, who supervised preparations for the second North Korea-US summit in Hanoi at the end of February, with North Korean State Affairs Commission Special Representative for US Affairs Kim Hyok-chol, who was in charge of the working-level negotiations for that summit. On May 31, the Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Yong-chol had been sentenced to hard labor and that Kim Hyok-chol and four senior officials in the Foreign Ministry had been executed. Subsequent to that, North Korean media printed photos of Kim Yong-chol attending a performance at a theater with Kim Jong-un on June 2, while CNN reported that Kim Hyok-chol is still alive. “It’s been going pretty well because there hasn’t been testing of anything major, and, frankly, there’s been no nuclear testing for a long period of time. When I became president, and before that, as you know, it was all the time: nuclear testing, ballistic missile testing. And now there’s nothing,” Trump said. “I think that Chairman Kim would like to make a deal, and I’d like to make a deal with him. I look forward to seeing him in the appropriate time.” By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
