North Korea Asks for Direct Nuclear Talks

WASHINGTON North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong un, has invited President Trump moncler uk outlet to meet for negotiations over its nuclear cheap moncler jackets mens program, an audacious diplomatic overture that would bring together two strong willed, idiosyncratic leaders who have moncler outlet store traded threats of war.

The White House moncler outlet prices said that Mr. Trump discount moncler jackets had accepted the invitation, and Chung Eui yong, a South Korean official who conveyed it, told reporters cheap moncler coats mens that the president would meet with Mr. Kim within two months.

«He expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible,» Mr. Chung said at the White House on Thursday evening after meeting the president. Mr. Trump, he said, agreed to «meet Kim Jong un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.»

The president expressed his optimism about the meeting in a post on cheap moncler sale Twitter, saying that Mr. Kim had «talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze.»

Mr. Chung, whose talks with Mr. Kim on Monday in Pyongyang resulted in the invitation, noted that the North Korean leader said he understood that joint military exercises moncler usa with the United States and South Korea would go ahead as scheduled after the end of the Paralympic Games this month.

For Mr. Trump, a meeting with Mr. Kim, a leader he has threatened with «fire and fury» and has derided as «Little Rocket Man,» is a breathtaking gamble. No sitting American president has ever met a North Korean leader, and Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly vowed that he would not commit the error of his predecessors by being drawn into a protracted negotiation in which North Korea extracted concessions from the United States but held on to key elements of its nuclear program.

Meeting Mr. Kim now, rather than at the end of a negotiation when the United States would presumably have extracted concessions from North Korea, is an enormous gesture by the president. But Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim share a moncler sale penchant for bold, dramatic moves, and their personal participation in a negotiation could take it in unexpected directions.

The announcement itself was delivered in an improvisational style that belied its historic significance. uk moncler sale Mr. to tell reporters that South Korea would make a major announcement at 7.

Then the cheap moncler jackets womens White House left it to Mr. Chung, who is President Moon Jae in’s national security adviser, to deliver the news to reporters, standing in the darkened driveway in front of the West best moncler jackets Wing. The White House later confirmed Mr. Trump’s plan to meet Mr. Kim in a statement from the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Behind the scenes, events unfolded even more haphazardly. Mr. Trump was not scheduled to moncler outlet woodbury meet Mr. Chung until Friday, but when he heard that the envoy was in the West Wing seeing other officials, the president summoned him to the Oval Office, according to a senior moncler down jacket administration official.

Mr. Trump, the official said, then asked Mr. Chung to tell him about his meeting with Mr. Kim. When uk moncler outlet Mr. Chung said that the North Korean leader had expressed a desire to meet Mr. Trump, the president immediately said he would do it, and directed Mr. Chung to announce it to the White House press corps.

Mr. Chung, nonplused, said he first needed approval from Mr. Moon, who quickly granted it in a phone call. Mr. Trump later called Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, and the two discussed coordinating diplomatic efforts. Mr. Trump also plans to call President Xi Jinping of China.

By day’s end, dazed White House officials were discussing whether Mr. Trump would invite Mr. Kim to come to the United States. That seemed entirely likely, the senior administration official said, though American officials doubt the North Korean leader would accept.

The announcement capped another day of swirling drama at the White moncler sale online House, in which the president defied his own party by announcing sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and sought to ignore a mushrooming scandal over a pornographic film actress who claims to have had an affair with him.

White House officials had expected to deliberate for several days over how to respond to North Korea’s proposal for direct talks between the countries, which South Korean officials had first conveyed by telephone this week. But Mr. Kim’s offer of a leader to leader meeting accelerated, if not upended, the administration’s plans.

Embarking on a high level negotiation will pose a stiff challenge to the administration, which has built its North Korea policy around imposing crippling sanctions, backed by the threat of military action. moncler sale outlet People briefed by the administration said it had done little planning for how a negotiation with the North would cheap moncler jackets unfold.

The State Department’s chief North Korea negotiator, Joseph Yun, recently https://www.monclerdownjacket.biz announced his departure from the Foreign Service. The White moncler outlet online House also scotched a plan to nominate another experienced negotiator, Victor Cha, as ambassador to Seoul.

North Korea, by contrast, appears to have planned its diplomatic overture methodically, starting with Mr. Kim’s conciliatory message toward the South in his New Year’s Day address, and continuing through the North’s charm offensive during the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The South Korean envoys visited the White House on Thursday to brief Mr. Trump and his staff on their meeting with Mr. Kim, which was the first between South Korean officials and Mr. Kim. While they said they were carrying additional messages from North Korea, an American official said that moncler online store the envoys did not deliver a letter from Mr. Kim.

In South Korea, people greeted the news of a meeting between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump with relief. South Koreans had nervously watched the Korean Peninsula edge toward the brink of a possible military conflict last year.

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«We hope that these developments will become an important turning point for realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and firmly establishing peace there,» Lee Yu jin, a government spokeswoman, said Friday.

Since taking power last May, Mr. Moon has repeatedly called for a dialogue with North Korea, even as Mr. Trump has escalated pressure on the North with increasingly harsh sanctions, more vigorous military maneuvers and a string of hostile tweets.

Mr. Kim rattled the region last year with a series of nuclear and long moncler outlet range missile tests. Then he suddenly responded to Mr. Moon’s overtures for dialogue, in which he proposed talks with South Korea, saying he was willing to send athletes to the Olympics.