President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed Friday on the need to press North Korea for “concrete actions” toward denuclearization in order to secure a meeting between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un, the White House said on Friday.
Trump and Moon discussed “ongoing efforts to prepare for their upcoming engagements with North Korea,” the White House said in a summary of the call.
“Both leaders affirmed the importance of learning from the mistakes of the past, and pledged continued, close coordination to maintain maximum pressure on the North Korean regime,” the White House said. “The two leaders agreed that concrete actions, not words, will be the key to achieving permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and President Trump reiterated his intention to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of May.”
Trump announced last week he had accepted an invitation from Kim, extended through a South Korean delegation, to meet face-to-face sometime in the spring. The White House has credited Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions and military threats with bringing North Korea to the negotiating table and securing a vague commitment from Kim to denuclearize at some point in the future.
However, Trump has set few specific parameters around the meeting, such as how his administration plans to verify what the regime is doing and whether ridding Pyongyang of nuclear weapons would involve scrapping the country’s ballistic missile capabilities as well as its nuclear weapons.
Trump and Moon “expressed cautious optimism over recent developments” during their phone call on Friday, according to the White House. Both men “emphasized that a brighter future is available for North Korea, if it chooses the correct path.”
Talks between North and South Korea resumed last month for the first time in years, sparking fresh hope that tensions on the peninsula could ease after months of escalation. Pyongyang’s frequent nuclear and ballistic tests have raised fears that a conventional war could break out between the U.S. and North Korea.
