President Trump on Tuesday said his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may not take place in June, raising further doubt about whether the historic meeting will occur.
“If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “You never know about deals … I’ve made a lot of deals. I know deals, I think, better than anyone knows deals. You never really know.
“It may not work out for June 12,” he added.
Trump spoke during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, whose government has helped broker nuclear diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea. Moon’s visit comes three weeks before the scheduled Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.
Moon said the “fate and the future” of the Korean Peninsula depend on the talks. South Korea has urged Trump to resolve the nuclear crisis with Kim through talks.
But North Korea threw the nuclear summit into doubt last week when it scrapped high-level talks with South Korea and threatened to pull out of the talks with Trump if the U.S. continues to demand denuclearization.
North Korean officials also lashed out at Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who suggested a North Korean arms deal could follow a “Libya model.”
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi in 2003 surrendered his nuclear and chemical weapons in exchange for sanctions relief, but eight years later, was toppled by NATO-backed rebel forces.
Trump said Kim is “serious” about denuclearization and added the North Korean leader said “he will be extremely happy” if a deal is struck. The president said last week Kim would get “very strong” protections under an agreement, including a guarantee of safety.
“South Korea, China and Japan … they will be willing to help, and I believe invest very, very large sums of money to make North Korea great,” he said.
Still, Trump acknowledged there is a significant chance the talks could still fall apart.
“Whether or not it happens, you’ll be knowing very soon,” he said.
Source: The Hill
