Trump Agrees to Meet North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un White House says president accepted invitation extended in a letter delivered by senior South Korean official By Michael R. Gordon , Louise Radnofsky and Jonathan Cheng
https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-invites-trump-to-meet-in-north-korea-1520555014
President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said Thursday, a meeting that would mark the first time a serving U.S. president has sat down with the leadership of the heavily militarized and diplomatically isolated country.
The leader-to-leader meeting, which American officials said would take place within the next “couple of months” at a location yet to be determined, is a potential turning point after more than six decades of confrontation involving North Korea, its southern neighbor and South Korea’s allies.
But it also stands to sharply raise the diplomatic stakes in one of the world’s most volatile standoffs.
American officials acknowledged that it was unusual for such a face-to-face session to be arranged without an extensive series of preparatory meetings between lower-ranking officials. But they asserted that it was justified because Mr. Kim was the only person able to make decisions in his “uniquely authoritarian” regime and that Mr. Trump was known as a deal maker.
“At this point we are not even talking about negotiations,” a senior U.S. official said, while stressing that the U.S.’s ultimate goal was complete denuclearization by North Korea, subject to stringent verification. CONTINUE AT SITE
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