President Donald Trump hinted at a possible meeting with
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Demilitarized Zone between North and
South Korea following his G20 summit trip with world leaders in Japan.
“After some very important meetings, including my meeting
with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with
President Moon),” Trump said in a tweet. “While there, if Chairman Kim of North
Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and
say Hello(?)!”
During a working lunch with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince
Mohammad bin Salman, Trump elaborated on his decision and told reporters he
would be visiting the DMZ for around “two minutes.”
“If I didn’t become president … you’d be having a war right
now with North Korea,” Trump said to reporters at the Imperial Hotel Osaka in
Japan.
Trump is scheduled to meet South Korean President Moon
Jae-in in Seoul on Sunday. A South Korean government official previously suggested
that Trump could be meeting the Kim during his visit, but noted there were no
plans for a trilateral summit that includes Moon, according to CNN.
The US president was scheduled to take a helicopter to the
border to meet Kim in 2017, but the meeting was canceled due to inclement
weather conditions. The potential trip follows the US-North Korea summit at
Hanoi, Vietnam in February, which ended abruptly following disagreements with
Pyongyang’s path towards denuclearization.
If Trump decides to make the trip to the DMZ, he would be
the fifth US president to visit the border after the Korean Armistice Agreement
in the 1950s. Former President Barack Obama last visited the border in 2012.
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