WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that talks are underway with North Korea over setting up a second summit meeting between President Trump and leader Kim Jong Un, as the two sides seek to put stalled nuclear negotiations back on track.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Kim requested the follow-up to the historic Singapore summit in June in a “warm, very positive letter” to Trump delivered in recent days.
“It’s something that we want to take place and are already working on making that happen,” Sanders said, though she emphasized that no decisions have been made regarding timing or a venue.
The announcement was the latest sign that Trump, despite growing frustration, remains heavily invested in the efforts to get Pyongyang to comply with pledges to denuclearize made during the Singapore meeting. Trump abruptly canceled a planned visit from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang three weeks ago, citing a lack of progress.
But the president has reacted positively to Kim’s recent overture, boasting at a rally in Montana late last week that Kim had “said some terrific things about me.”
“He said very strongly that we want to denuclearize North Korea during President Trump’s tenure,” Trump told supporters at the event in Billings, citing reports from South Korean emissaries who had visited Pyongyang and met with Kim last week.
Sanders said the White House would not release a copy of Kim’s letter without Pyongyang’s permission. She cited North Korea’s decision not to include ballistic missiles in a military parade in Pyongyang over the weekend as a sign that the Kim regime was taking steps not to antagonize the United States.
“The recent parade in North Korea, for once, was not about their nuclear arsenal,” Sanders said. “The president has achieved tremendous success with his policies so far. And this letter was further evidence of progress in that relationship.”
Some analysts had pointed to the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York in two weeks as a possible venue for a Trump-Kim meeting, but the North Korean leader has offered no indication that he plans to attend. U.S. officials have privately suggested it is unlikely that such a meeting would take place there during Trump’s two-day visit.
In a tweet Sunday, Trump described Kim’s decision not to display ballistic missiles as a “big and positive statement,” adding that there is “nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other!”
But national security adviser John Bolton said Monday the administration is “still waiting for them” to take significant action. Among other things, the United States is seeking a detailed declaration from the North over the size of its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals.
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