Donald Trump, after denials and moments of tension, confirmed that the summit with KimJong-un will be reality, after receiving the right hand of Kim Jung un at Casa Binaca, who gave him a personal letter from the North Korean leader. "We will meet on June 12 in Singapore," Trump told reporters, who is preparing to become the first American head of state to meet in person a member of the Kim dynasty, which has reigned over the north for over seventy years. Korean peninsula. Just a week earlier, the American himself had canceled the planned summit, denouncing Pyongyang's "hostility". The meeting with General Kim Yong Chol "went well," said the American, adding: "We talked about ending the Korean War, technically taking place 65 years after the 1953 armistice. He also predicted that Kim intends to denuclearise the country, as Washington demands. In a spectacular new demonstration of détente, Trump spent about an hour and a half in the Oval Office with the North Korean emissary, billed as "the second most powerful man in North Korea." The latter, at the forefront of preparations for the summit together with his American counterpart Mike Pompeo, handed him a letter from Kim Jong-un, the content of which was not immediately revealed. Trump initially spoke of "extremely interesting" content, only to admit he hasn't read yet. And the White House has released images of the delivery, which have sparked rivers of comments on social networks: the envelope is decidedly large, at least four times those usually used. White House sources pointed out that it was thoroughly analyzed by the Secret service before it was handed over to Trump.There is only one precedent for this visit: the visit to the White House of Deputy Marshal Jo Myong Rok, then North Korea's number two. , received in 2000 by then President Bill Clinton. There was also a summit on the North Korean nuclear program at the time, but the plan fell through. This prompts observers to be extremely cautious. Trump himself has somehow tried to dampen expectations: "We will start a process", "we will not sign anything that day", although "in the end it will be a successful process". In addition to Trump, the Norwegian general saw Pompeo for the third time in three days, following discussions on Wednesday and Thursday in New York, and after the spring talks in Pyongyang. In the center, the agenda of the Singapore summit. Washington wants a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization of North Korea and says it is ready to give guarantees of "security" to the regime.
In a new gesture of détente, Trump on Friday also pushed aside the expression "maximum pressure" used so far for his policy towards Pyongyang, saying he will not impose new sanctions during the negotiations. "I don't want to use the term 'maximum pressure' anymore," he told reporters, "see the report, it's not a question of 'maximum pressure'". For his part, Kim repeated that he wanted to "go towards a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula", but spoke of a "step by step" process. The regime has, moreover, publicly declared its rejection of any "unilateral" disarmament. Beijing said it was "happy" with the new progress and expressed the "hope that North Korea and the US will continue to get closer". Seoul said that "the delivery of the letter has broadened and consolidated the road to the summit" on 12 June.