South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday called a recent US-North Korean summit at the Korean border an end of mutual hostility between the countries, despite skepticism by many experts that it was a just made-for-TV moment that lacked any substance.
During their impromptu third summit at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reaffirmed their friendships and agreed to resume nuclear talks.
Trump’s brief stepping across the borderline into North Korea also made him the first sitting US president to set foot in the North’s soil.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, neither side has indicated they are any closer to resolving sticking points that collapsed their previous summit.
Moon told a Cabinet meeting that the summit in the DMZ meant the two countries declared “an end of hostile relations” and the “start of an era of peace.”
Moon, who briefly chatted with Trump and Kim on a DMZ village before the US and North Korean leaders sat for a two-way meeting, described their summit as “historic.”
He also called the summit “the fruits of amazing imagination,” saying it was arranged due to Trump’s “unprecedented” Twitter offer for a meeting and Kim’s “bold” decision to accept it.
Moon, a liberal who took office in 2017, has lobbied hard to set up diplomacy between Trump and Kim to help find a peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear crisis.
He met Kim three times last year, and their first and second summits happened at the same DMZ village called Panmunjom.
At the start of Sunday’s meeting, Trump went across ankle-high concrete slabs that form the military demarcation line at Panmunjom after Kim told him he would become the first US president to be in North Korea if he did so.
After walking together toward north several meters, they turned back to the South for a summit that lasted about 50 minutes.
Trump said he was “proud” to step over the borderline and thanked Kim for showing up for the meeting.
Kim said he was initially “very surprised” at Trump’s tweet Saturday proposing a DMZ meeting and that their summit could not have occurred if the two leaders did not have “great friendship.”
North Korea’s state media described Kim’s meeting with Trump as “an amazing event” and that both leaders expressed great satisfaction over the result of their talks.
Moon’s government has also said it hopes the diplomatic momentum created by the latest Trump-Kim meeting would help revive inter-Korean dialogue.
US and North Korean officials are expected to sit down for working-level talks in coming weeks to hammer out the terms of a mutually acceptable deal, but many experts say it remains unclear whether the negotiations would successfully address the fundamental differences between Washington and Pyongyang that were exposed in the second Kim-Trump summit in Vietnam in February.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number