Kim makes first official mention of US-N Korea talks

TIL Desk/World/Seoul/ North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un discussed future talks with the US at a party meeting, state media reported today, in his first official mention of dialogue with Washington ahead of a planned summit with President Donald Trump.

Trump agreed last month to a landmark summit with the nuclear-armed North — which would be the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader — but no specific dates or venue have been set, with questions mounting over Pyongyang’s participation.

At the meeting of party officials Monday, Kim discussed the “development of the north-south relations at present and the prospect of the DPRK-U.S. dialogue”,  referring to the North by its official acronym.

He delivered a report “on the development of the recent situation on the Korean peninsula”, including the separate summit with South Korea to be held later this month, it said.

In a growing rapprochement on the Korean peninsula, Kim is scheduled to meet the South’s president Moon Jae-in for a rare inter-Korean summit on April 27. Trump has agreed to meet Kim for a historic US-North Korean summit to discuss denuclearisation as soon as next month.