Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Trump renews call for Kim meeting, but North Korea remains silent
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the border village of Panmunjeom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, June 30, 2019. AP-Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
U.S. President Donald Trump said he is willing to extend his stay in South Korea in order to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but Pyongyang has offered no response, maintaining its customary silence ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One during his flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Tokyo on Monday, Trump said, “If he [Kim] wants to meet, I’d love to,” adding that he “could go over there” while in South Korea.
He emphasized that he and Kim had a “very good relationship” and that extending the trip would be “easy if needed.” It was the latest in a series of gestures that began before his departure for Asia last week.
Trump also referred to North Korea as “a nuclear power,” repeating a phrase he has used since returning to office, and said he is “100 percent open” to another encounter with the North Korean leader. He noted that Washington’s strongest leverage remains “sanctions,” describing them as “a pretty big issue to start from.”
It was the first time in his second term that Trump had publicly suggested including the sanctions regime on the negotiation agenda.
Despite repeated invitations, North Korea has remained unresponsive. The North’s Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui traveled to Russia and Belarus this week and is expected to return after Trump’s two-day visit to South Korea on Wednesday and Thursday.
The itinerary suggests little interest in direct engagement, at least for now.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told reporters that Kim “seems to be managing his message to Washington very carefully,” citing reports that North Korean workers recently carried out cleaning and repainting work on the northern side of Panmunjeom.
Analysts said the two leaders appear to have divergent aims. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said that Pyongyang “probably sees Trump as not yet ready for serious talks,” adding that Kim “would rather avoid another Hanoi-style meeting that ends in political embarrassment.”
The 2019 Hanoi summit between Trump and Kim ended abruptly without a deal being reached. Kim had traveled to Vietnam by train for the two-day meeting and proposed dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for sanctions relief.
However, Trump demanded that North Korea also disclose and dismantle additional undeclared nuclear sites identified by U.S. intelligence.
When Kim refused, Trump declared that Pyongyang was “not ready to make a deal” and walked out of the talks, leaving the summit without an agreement.
Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies, said that Trump’s remarks acknowledging North Korea’s nuclear status were intended to “set the tone for dialogue” during the APEC summit week, but added that “with firm backing from Russia and China, Kim is in no hurry to meet.”
Park Won-gon, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University, said that a surprise encounter cannot be ruled out entirely. “Given both leaders’ unpredictable styles, an unplanned decision is always possible,” he said. “But the odds of an actual summit are still quite low.”
During his first term, Trump met with Kim three times, including an impromptu June 2019 meeting at the Demilitarized Zone arranged just 32 hours after Trump proposed it publicly on social media. Officials in Seoul say the current administration is “far better prepared” for a sudden encounter, should one occur again.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in Gyeongju on Wednesday for the APEC summit, where he is expected to meet with other regional leaders, including President Lee Jae Myung. It remains uncertain whether Kim will respond before then, leaving Washington and Seoul watching for any signal from Pyongyang.