NBC News: The leaders of North and South Korea met in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries on Saturday, hours after President Donald Trump suggested his June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un may still go ahead.
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly discussed the denuclearization agreement the two leaders signed when they first met at the border last month, according to a statement released by South Korea’s presidential Blue House, as well as the potential summit with Trump.
Saturday’s surprise talks between the rival Koreas came hours after Trump told reporters that the planned June 12 summit in Singapore, which he abruptly canceled on Thursday, might still be salvaged.
“We’re going to see what happens,” he told reporters. “We’re talking to them now. It could even be the 12th” of June.
The president then tweeted late Friday night that the two countries are having “very productive talks” about reinstating the summit. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday a White House team will depart for Singapore as scheduled “in order to prepare should the summit take place.”
Kim and Moon met for two hours on the North Korean side of the truce village Panmunjom between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. local time (2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. ET), according to the Blue House, which released pictures of the two leaders embracing.
“The two leaders exchanged views frankly in order to make the U.S.-N.K. summit talks happen successfully and to carry out the 4.27 Panmunjeom Declaration,” said Yoon Young Chan, a presidential spokesman, referring to the agreement signed after last month’s historic talks.
Based on an agreement between the two leaders, Moon will announce the results of the latest talks at 10 a.m. local time Sunday (9 p.m. ET Saturday).
Last month’s summit marked the first meeting between North and South Korean leaders in a decade. During the talks Kim and Moon pledged “no more war,” as well as the common goal of the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.
The detente on the Korean Peninsula came as the North Korean leader engaged with Trump over their nuclear arsenal. After a year of fiery rhetoric the two leaders agreed to meet in Singapore next month in what would be a historic summit.
But the White House stunned the world Thursday by canceling the meeting 18 days before it was due to take place and by warning that the U.S. military is prepared to act.
Trump blamed the cancellation on the “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a recent statement by the North Koreans. The president appeared to be referring to a statement by Pyongyang on Thursday that warned of a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” with the United States.
The North Koreans were reacting to comments by Vice President Mike Pence suggesting that the rogue state could face a fate similar to that of Libya, where former leader Muammar Qaddafi was deposed and killed after agreeing to dispose of his nuclear weapons.
North Korea called the vice president a “political dummy” for the remark.
However, Pyongyang said its rhetoric was tit-for-tat and that they were still willing to “sit down any time and in any way to solve the problem.”
