US Prez and N Korean leader appear at odds over the term 'denuclearisation' and the South's President is keen to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula
Moon Jae-in with Donald Trump. File Pic
Donald Trump holds a high-stakes meeting with South Korea's president at the White House, talks that could decide whether the US president's much-vaunted summit with the North's leader Kim Jong Un goes ahead.
Moon Jae-in jets into Washington on a mission to salvage a rare diplomatic opening between the US and North Korea that is in trouble almost before it begins. Trump had agreed to meet Kim in Singapore on June 12, but the first-ever US-North Korea summit is now in serious doubt, with both sides expressing reservations. South Korea — worried about Kim's bellicose weapons testing and Trump's similarly bellicose warnings about a looming war — was instrumental in convincing the two Cold War foes to sit down and talk.
Pyongyang is on the verge of marrying nuclear and missile technology allowing it to hit mainland US with a nuke, a capability Washington sees as wholly unacceptable.
Since then, there has been a landmark series of intra-Korean meetings, two trips to Pyongyang by Mike Pompeo — first as CIA director then as America's top diplomat — and three American citizens have been released from the North.
But, after several Trumpian victory laps, North Korea's willingness to denuclearise is now in serious doubt. Earlier this month, North Korea denounced US demands for "unilateral nuclear abandonment" and cancelled at the last minute a high-level meeting with the South in protest over joint military drills between Seoul and Washington. Trump responded by saying the meeting may or may not take place.
Vice President Mike Pence warned in an interview that there was "no question" that Trump would be prepared to walk away from the talks with Kim if it looks like they won't yield results.
Pence said that both the Clinton and Bush administrations "got played" by North Korea when Washington previously tried to get Pyongyang to denuclearise, but the current administration would not make the same mistakes.
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