WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February but will maintain economic sanctions on Pyongyang, the White House said on Friday after Trump met Pyongyang’s top nuclear negotiator.
The announcement came amid a diplomatic flurry in Washington surrounding the visit of Kim Yong Chol, a hardline former spy chief, and marked a sign of movement in a denuclearization effort that has stalled since a landmark meeting between Trump and the North Korean leader in Singapore on June 12.
“President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and a half to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. She said a location would be announced later.
The summit was announced even though there has been no indication of any narrowing of differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States and Pyongyang’s demands for a lifting of punishing sanctions.
Sanders said that Trump’s talks with the North Korean envoy were productive but added that the United States “is going to continue to keep pressure and sanctions on North Korea.”
South Korea’s presidential office said it expected the upcoming summit to be a “turning point to lay the firm foundation for lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.”
South Korea will work with the United States and other countries to “achieve concrete and practical results toward complete denuclearization and a lasting peace regime through the North Korea-U.S. summit...,” presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said in a statement on Saturday. (Reuters)