DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. president Donald Trump signed a “comprehensive” document following a historic summit aimed at the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
There were mo immediate details on the contents of the document but Trump said he denexpected the denuclearisation process to start “very, very quickly”.
Although the breakthrough made at the summit marks just the start of a diplomatic process, it could bring lasting change to the security landscape of Northeast Asia, just as former U.S. President Richard Nixon visit to Beijing in 1972 led to the transformation of China.
Before signing what Trump described as a “comprehensive letter”, Kim said the two leaders had a historic meeting “and decided to leave the past behind. The world will see a major change.”
Trump said he had formed a “very special bond” with Kim and that relationship with North Korea would be very different.
“People are going to be very impressed and people are going to be very happy and we are going to take care of a very dangerous problem for the world,” Trump said.
Asked whether he would invite Kim to the White House, Trump said: “Absolutely, I will.”
During a post-lunch stroll through the gardens of the Singapore hotel where the summit was held, Trump said the summit had gone “better than anybody could have expected”.
Kim stood silently alongside, but he had earlier described their meeting as a “a good prelude to peace”.
Both men walked to Trump’s bullet-proof limousine, nicknamed “The Beast”, and looked in at the rear seat, with Trump apparently showing Kim something inside. They then resumed their walk.
They had appeared cautious and serious when they first arrived for the summit at the Capella hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa, a resort island with luxury hotels, a casino, manmade beaches and a Universal Studios theme park.
But, with cameras of the world’s press trained on them, they displayed an initial atmosphere of bonhomie as they met on the verandah of the Capella, a refurbished 19th century British regimental officers’ mess.
After a handshake, they were soon smiling and holding each other by the arm, before Trump guided Kim to the library where they held a meeting with only their interpreters. Trump had said on Saturday he would know within a minute of meeting Kim whether he would reach a deal.
In the hours before the summit began, Trump expressed optimism about prospects for the first-ever meeting of sitting U.S. and DPRK leaders, while Pompeo injected a note of caution whether Kim would prove to be sincere about his willingness to denuclearise.
Pompeo said the summit should set the framework for “the hard work that will follow”, insisting that the DPRK had to move toward complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation.
North Korea, however, has shown little appetite for surrendering nuclear weapons it considers vital to the survival of Kim’s dynastic rule.
Sanctions on Kim would remain in place until that happened, Pompeo said on Monday. “If diplomacy does not move in the right direction … those measures will increase.”
The White House said later that discussions with the DPRK had moved “more quickly than expected” and Trump would leave Singapore on Tuesday night after the summit, rather than Wednesday, as scheduled earlier.
Kim is due to leave on Tuesday afternoon, a source involved in the planning of his visit has said.
Trump spoke to Moon and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both key allies of Washington in the region, to discuss developments ahead of the summit.
“I too, got little sleep last night,” Moon told his cabinet in Seoul as the summit began in Singapore.
“I truly hope it will be a successful summit that will open a new age for the two Koreas and the United States and bring us complete denuclearisation and peace.”
