SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has received an “excellent” letter from President Trump, the country’s state media said on Sunday, two days after President Xi Jinping of China wrapped up a visit to the North.
After reading the letter, Mr. Kim “said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported on Sunday. It added that Mr. Kim appreciated Mr. Trump’s “extraordinary courage,” and that he “would seriously contemplate the interesting content” of the letter.
The news agency carried a photo of Mr. Kim reading the letter in his office. Its brief report provided no further details, including when Mr. Trump’s letter arrived.
Talks between Washington and Pyongyang on the denuclearization of North Korea have been stalemated for months, after Mr. Kim’s second meeting with Mr. Trump, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February, ended in collapse and humiliation for the North Korean leader.
But Mr. Kim, whose country is suffering under crippling economic sanctions, has recently begun stepping up diplomatic overtures, sending a letter to Mr. Trump and inviting Mr. Xi to Pyongyang.
On June 11, Mr. Trump revealed that he had “received a beautiful letter” from Mr. Kim a day earlier. In an interview with Time magazine last Monday, he said he had also received a hand-delivered “birthday letter” from Mr. Kim the day before. Mr. Trump turned 73 on June 14.
The two leaders walked away from the Vietnam summit meeting in February after Mr. Trump rejected Mr. Kim’s offer to dismantle a key nuclear facility — but not his nuclear weapons and long-range missiles — if Washington lifted its most biting economic sanctions. Mr. Trump demanded a quicker and fuller rollback of the North’s entire nuclear program before removing sanctions.
While there has been little movement since, Mr. Trump has continued to express his faith in engaging Mr. Kim in dialogue, citing his “warm” personal relations with the North Korean dictator.
The Hanoi breakdown was considered a huge embarrassment for Mr. Kim, who had taken a 70-hour train journey to Vietnam for the meeting. He later said he would give the United States until the end of the year to return to the negotiating table with a “new calculation.”
But North Korea has also indicated repeatedly that Mr. Kim cherished the personal rapport he developed with Mr. Trump through their two meetings and exchanges of envoys and letters. North Korea pinned blame for the Hanoi collapse on Mr. Trump’s top aides, including his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
As Mr. Trump has looked for a way forward with Mr. Kim, he has also been locked in a festering trade dispute with the Chinese leader, Mr. Xi, whom Mr. Kim gave a spectacle-filled welcome to Pyongyang late last week.
Mr. Xi, who spent Thursday and Friday in the North Korean capital, made the first visit to the country by a top Chinese leader in 14 years. Both Mr. Kim and Mr. Xi were seen as trying to use each other as leverage in their separate standoffs with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump are set to discuss their trade war at the Group of 20 gathering in Osaka, Japan, this weekend. Mr. Trump is then scheduled to fly to South Korea to meet with its president, Moon Jae-in, who is urging Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim to resume nuclear negotiations.
Mr. Moon wants to meet again with Mr. Kim to help break the logjam between the North and the United States, and to improve inter-Korean ties. Mr. Moon’s office on Sunday welcomed the exchange of letters between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim, saying it would help build momentum for dialogue.
Source : Nytimes
