US and North Korea preparing Trump-Kim summit

A US team is holding talks with North Korean officials to prepare a possible meeting between President Donald Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong-un.

The talks in the village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas, are the latest sign that the summit could take place after all.

On Thursday Mr. Trump called off the meeting - due in Singapore next month - citing the North's "hostility".

But both sides have since been working to get it back on track.

On Saturday Mr. Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held an unannounced meeting. 

Mr. Moon said the North's leader had "again made clear his commitment to a complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

Mr. Kim later spoke of his "fixed will" that the summit should go ahead. On Sunday Mr. Trump tweeted that it would help the North achieve its "brilliant potential".

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself. I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial Nation one day. Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this. It will happen!</p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1000831304836018176?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">May 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


The team is reportedly led by Sung Kim, a former ambassador to South Korea, and was to hold talks with North Korean Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui.

The aim of the talks is to set an agenda for the summit between the leaders.

While officials appear more optimistic about that meeting going ahead, recent weeks have shown that the relationship can change very quickly, says the BBC's Chris Butler in Washington.

SOURCE: BBC News
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