PANMUNJOM, South Korea (AFP) – Donald Trump stepped onto North Korean soil yesterday as he met Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula, in a symbolic diplomatic spectacle and a first for any American President.
After shaking hands with Kim over the line that marks where their two countries and their allies fought each other to a standstill in the 1950-53 Korean War, Trump walked for several steps into North Korean territory, before another handshake.
The two men then walked into Seoul’s territory together – pausing on the line for photographers – where they were joined by South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
“It’s a great day for the world and it’s an honour for me to be here,’’ Trump said. ‘’A lot of great things are happening.’’
The impromptu meeting in the DMZ – which came after Trump issued an invitation on Twitter on Saturday – comes with negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington over the North’s nuclear arsenal at a deadlock.
The two would “just shake hands quickly and say hello because we haven’t seen each other since Vietnam,” Trump said earlier.
Their first summit took place in a blaze of publicity in Singapore last year but produced a vaguely-worded pledge about denuclearization, and a second meeting in Vietnam in February intended to put flesh on those bones broke up without agreement.
Contact between the two sides has since been minimal – with Pyongyang issuing frequent criticisms of the US position – but the two leaders have exchanged a series of letters and Trump turned to Twitter on Saturday to issue his offer.
“If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!,’’ he wrote from from Osaka in Japan, where he was attending a G20 summit before flying to Seoul.
In an unusually fast and public response, within hours of Trump’s tweet, the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui as saying the offer was “a very interesting suggestion.’’
Trump’s entry onto North Korean soil is a dramatic re-enactment of the extraordinary scene last year when the young leader invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to walk over the Military Demarcation Line that divides the Koreas.
