CNN - President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House announced, setting the scene for a historic, unprecedented encounter.

The meeting, which would be the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, will happen by May, according to South Korea's national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, who delivered the invitation to Trump after a visit by his delegation to Pyongyang earlier this week.
The stunning announcement is the culmination of a diplomatic whirlwind that began with the invitation of a North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Trump's decision to meet Kim, after a year in which the two have repeatedly traded insults, is a remarkable breakthrough -- albeit one with uncertain consequences.

The South Korean delegation, which landed in Washington, D.C. for a debriefing Thursday on the North-South talks, was careful to praise Trump's influence over the developments. Chung said the US President's "leadership" and his administration's pressure on the North Korean regime had "brought us to this juncture."

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump "greatly appreciates the nice words" of the delegation and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
"He will accept the invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearization of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain."
There are many details to be ironed out before the meeting could take place, including the location. The Panmunjom truce village in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), one possible venue, hosted meetings between North and South Korea in the run-up to the Winter Olympics.

Lalasticlala mynd44 seun

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/08/politics/donald-trump-kim-jong-un/index.html

Rapid development
Trump agreed to meet with Kim within hours of learning of the North Korean leader's offer. Chung, the South Korean national security adviser, arrived at the White House shortly before 2:30 p.m. to meet with his US counterpart, H.R. McMaster, and brief the President in the Oval Office.
Just minutes after 5 p.m., Trump poked his head in the White House briefing room to tell reporters South Korea would be making a "major announcement."

Chung's delegation appeared outside the West Wing about two hours later. In a brief statement to reporters, Chung said Kim "expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible."
The North Korean leader had told the South Koreans "he is committed to denuclearization" and pledged that North Korea will "refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests," Chung said. Kim also told the South Koreans he understands that the US and South Korea would move forward with their joint military exercises later this year.

i don't believe this! if you've said it's kim jong un that agrees to meet trump, i'll have agreed. but not the other way round

Good.
Let there be peace.

Sanctions to remain in place

Since Trump came into office, the US has leveled some of its most significant and far-reaching sanctions against North Korea and has also succeeded in pressuring China to further isolate the regime. That pressure, the White House said Thursday, would not abate as the US heads toward the historic talks.
While Trump has signaled in a tweet that he was optimistic about the possibilities, he reiterated the US stance on sanctions.

Echoing Trump's stance, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the US would continue to impose sanctions until the North Korean regime terminates its nuclear weapons program. "We will not take off these sanctions until we achieve these goals to make sure that the world is protected," he said in New York.

The Trump administration has imposed "more sanctions on North Korea in the last year than the prior administrations have done in the past 20 years," he added.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talked to President Donald Trump on the phone on Friday local time (Thursday night ET) to reiterate the commitment by Japan and the US to a policy of "maximum pressure" on North Korea.
Abe, briefing reporters after the call, said that the US and Japan had agreed to "keep putting maximum pressure until North Korea takes concrete actions toward denuclearization."

Departure from previous thinking

But a host of questions lingered over Trump's remarkable decision, which signaled a break with the administration's thinking just days -- even hours -- earlier.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters traveling with him in Ethiopia earlier on Thursday that the US was "a long way from negotiations."
"In terms of direct talks with the United States, and you asked negotiations, we're a long way from negotiations. We just need to be very clear-eyed and realistic about it," Tillerson said.
Trump's approach to North Korea has wavered between bellicose rhetoric and expressions of openness to diplomacy -- with the President saying one day that the US would rain "fire and fury" on North Korea and then saying he would consider speaking directly with the country's leader under the right circumstances.

On the campaign trail he signaled more than once that he would be open to direct talks, but more recently belittled Tillerson's attempts to bring Kim to the negotiating table.
"I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," he tweeted back in October.

The White House did not say why it had changed its calculus toward North Korea by agreeing to talks without "concrete steps toward denuclearization."

But a senior administration official said Trump had accepted Kim's invitation to meet because "it makes sense to accept an invitation to meet with the one person who can actually make decisions," even though past US-North Korea talks have taken place at a lower level.

"President Trump was elected in part because he is willing to do -- take approaches very, very different from past approaches and past presidents. That couldn't be better exemplified in his North Korea policy," the official said Thursday evening.

The official added that "President Trump has made his reputation on making deals" and Kim "is the one person who is able to make decisions under their authoritarian -- or totalitarian -- system."

Optimism -- but also a minefield

In the first year of Trump's presidency, Pyongyang escalated its bellicose rhetoric and increased the pace of its missile and nuclear tests. Only in recent weeks, with the overtures led by South Korea, has a breakthrough seemed possible.

The potential talks between Trump and Kim could represent the US's best chance yet to halt the advance of North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But analysts also question North Korea's motivations.

Experts believe North Korea is months from obtaining the capability to strike the US with a nuclear weapon. Trump has repeatedly said the US will not tolerate such a development, warning that he would first launch a devastating attack on North Korea.

Such a military confrontation would likely lead to the deaths of millions, not only in North Korea, but also in South Korea.

Kim Jung un or what, this short man seems to derive happiness from crises.

His people are now becoming skeletal do to his sturboneness.

TheSorrowfulMan:


So all the international media are lying

Lolzzz... I wonder... The guy said it like I created the story...

Trump is an intelligent man

America will do anything to save her citizens unlike here

NICE
Hope we are learning....
When you create a niche for your self, even if you live in the woods, the world will beat a way to meet with you....

Until we learn to hold our grounds and develop in our technology indigenous without looking to AMERICA and UK to buy us foods and medicine nobody will take us serious, all they would build for you is Just the Prison, they wont build any school any more, they wont build any hospital, all they build is the prison!!!!

L. Dube saw it coming

Udonmeanit

edmaraja:
Trump is an intelligent man

You said that because of your level of intelligence, smart people know better.

Trump just wan sell america

Shedrack777:
i don't believe this! if you've said it's kim jong un that agrees to meet trump, i'll have agreed. but not the other way round

d sanctions are working

Fruitless meeting. King Jon Un will end up schooling Trump same as China did.

Trump must be a fool to believe North Korea will back down.

I don't trust Kim

For Donald Trump to meet North Korea Leaders means something is wrong. Nuclear warheads in Korea is greater than that of USA.



That's the simple truth

Wow !!! What a gamble. I say they come out worse enemies. Though there is always the possibility of mending fences.

STATRIX CONSULTING HAS GOT ALL YOUR ICT NEEDS COVERED

What the fake media will not tell you or admit to is that

President Trump's pressure on Kim and North Korea as a whole is working (Sanctions and tougher stances) - and some were saying he was about going to war (possibly nuclear) with NK and that he was mentally deranged?. This man is intelligent, too smart, knows and plays the game at a higher level than the so called average politicians in Washington., and most importantly he knows how to get things done. What may come out of the meeting? we can never tell, but he's on track. All we want is PEACE at the end of the day. Hate him or love him Yes! he is unfiltered and not politically correct, but he loves his country and only wants what is best for it. If only our politicians can take a cue from this.

Trump keeps winning

with the way Trump get criticized daily by CNN and co, he's doing things Obama could not in his wildest dreams! seriously Trump is a force to recon with.

Obama the favorite never went this far

Hillary won't like this
Hope her lesbian partner is close by to hug her

If Obama had proposed this, the whites would have termed him a communist.

We remember how they reacted to him mending fences with Cuba and Iran.

Xisnin:

You said that because of your level of intelligence, smart people know better.

Sharrap!!! He has achieved what your dumbo in chief Obama couldn't achieve. All you Obozo and killary worshippers are the dumbest of the dumb people on earth