President Trump announced he will soon visit the Korean-North Korean border
The US President said his visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) had been planned for a long time.
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President Trump arrives at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea on June 29. Photo:Reuters |
"Today I will be visiting and talking with our troops, and also going to the DMZ (long planned)," President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on June 30, while in Seoul, South Korea. He also said he had a very good meeting with President Moon Jae-in and praised the new trade agreement between the two countries.
Yesterday, just hours before leaving the G20 summit in Japan to visit South Korea, Trump expressed his desire to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the DMZ.
"After some very important meetings, including with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in," he tweeted. "While I am there, if Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea sees this tweet, I will meet him at the Border, DMZ, just to shake his hand and say hello."
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife welcomed President Trump at the Blue House on the evening of June 29. Photo:Reuters |
In an interview earlier this week, the US President also confirmed that he would stay in South Korea for a day and said that the DMZ is "one of the places I will visit". When asked if he would agree to meet Kim Jong-un if asked by the North Korean leader, Trump replied: "Yes, I could".
If Trump and Kim meet today, this will be the third meeting between US and North Korean leaders in the past year and four months after the second summit in Hanoi failed to reach an agreement on North Korea's denuclearization.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said the US president's proposal was interesting and "another meaningful opportunity to deepen the personal relationship between the two leaders and advance bilateral relations." However, North Korea has not received any official notice on the matter.
President Trump arrived in Seoul last night and immediately attended a reception at the Blue House. Today, he will meet with more than a dozen South Korean business leaders at a hotel and hold talks with President Moon before heading to the DMZ, which he called "a real border." The Blue House did not say whether Moon would accompany Trump.
During his visit to South Korea in November 2017, Trump planned to visit the DMZ with his counterpart but later canceled the plan due to heavy fog.
