Trump open to meeting Kim Jong-un for 3rd time

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their second summit at the Metropole Hotel Hanoi in the Vietnamese capital on Feb. 27. Yonhap

North Korea urges US to exclude Pompeo in nuclear talks

By Lee Min-hyung

U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted at the possibility for a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying that “maybe” there was discussion about the possible meeting in his recent exchange of letters with Kim.

“Maybe there was, but at some point, we’ll do that,” he told reporters at the White House, Tuesday (local time). But he did not elaborate.

Rumors are that Trump may hold a surprise meeting with Kim on the sidelines of his upcoming trip to South Korea this weekend, as Trump is expected to visit the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom.

But the recent remark from Trump indicates that his third meeting with Kim is unlikely to take place that soon.

Trump also said Kim wished him a happy birthday in the latest letter, reiterating the two leaders are on good terms despite the breakdown of the Hanoi summit between the two last February.

“Getting along very well. He’s not doing nuclear testing,” Trump said.

Lee Do-hoon, the South’s top nuclear envoy, said the top-down style is the most ideal solution to break the ongoing deadlock in negotiations between the U.S. and the North.

“The top-down approach is the most suitable measure to resolve the nuclear conundrum at a time when leaders from Washington and Pyongyang are expressing their firm political determination,” Lee said last week in a seminar in the U.S.

North Korea demands exclusion of Pompeo

On Wednesday, North Korea also urged the U.S. to exclude U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for rapid progress in deadlocked nuclear negotiations.

“If U.S. policymakers with a sense of hostility against the North keeps engaging in the negotiations, it will be hard for the two sides to improve bilateral relations and achieve denuclearization of the peninsula,” the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency quoted its foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

Pyongyang has particularly taken issue with Pompeo’s recent remark that sanctions are affecting more than 80 percent of the North’s economy.

The spokesman urged Pompeo to stop resorting to “sophistry.”

“If the U.S.-led sanctions affect more than 80 percent of the North Korean economy, is it the goal of the U.S. to raise the figure to 100 percent?”

“His remark is the pinnacle of hostility against the North, and this also goes against the joint declaration signed by the leaders of the two countries in Singapore (last year),” the North Korean official said.