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Trump open to Kim visiting the White House

Storyline:National News

 

US President Donald Trump has said he is open to inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the White House if he deemed next week’s summit a success, while also signalling he was willing to walk away if he thought talks did not go well.

“Certainly if it goes well. I think it would be well received,” Trump said on Thursday during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“I think he would look at it very favorably so I think that could happen.”

On Thursday, Trump repeated what he said last week that it was possible he and Kim could sign an agreement to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which was concluded only with a truce, not a peace treaty.

“We could sign an agreement, as you know that would be a first step … We’re looking at it, we’re talking about it with a lot of other people,” Trump told reporters. “That’s probably the easy part. The hard part remains after that.”

Trump added that he hoped someday US relations with Kim’s secretive Pyongyang government could be normalized.

The main issue for the June 12 summit in Singapore is the US demand for North Korea to abandon a nuclear weapons programme that now threatens the United States.

North Korea has rejected giving up its arsenal unilaterally, and defends its nuclear and missile programmes as a deterrent against what it sees as US aggression.

The US stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War.

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