SEOUL, April 9 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in May or early June, Chosun Ilbo reported.
In a meeting with his cabinet secretaries at the White House, Trump asserted that the summit will take place in a month or two with “great respect between both parties” and that there will “hopefully be a deal on de-nuking.”
This comes after reports that Pyongyang directly confirmed with Washington that Kim intends to participate in the face-to-face meeting.
A South Korean presidential envoy, last month, had initially conveyed Kim’s intentions to discuss denuclearization with the U.S. leader.
Trump immediately accepted and suggested holding the talks in May, after the inter-Korean summit takes place late-April.
The highly anticipated meeting would mark the first time a sitting American president has met directly with a North Korean leader.
Trump, also, criticized his predecessors for not addressing Washington’s contentions with Pyongyang.
“This should have been done by other presidents and they’ve decided they didn’t do it. They couldn’t have done it. But it would have been a lot easier if it were done five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago,” he said.
The president added that the historic summit is being set up with North Korea, and that this will be “very exciting for the world.”
“Hopefully it will be a relationship that will be much different than it has been for many, many years ago,” he said, according to the New York Post.