President Trump will visit South Korea this weekend to meet with President Moon Jae-in after an exchange of letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un raised hopes for a revival of stalled nuclear talks.
The president will arrive in South Korea on Saturday and meet Moon on Sunday, following a summit of G20 leaders in Japan, said Moon’s spokeswoman Ko Min-jung, according to Reuters.
The announcement comes hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped a letter Trump sent to Kim could lead to renewed talks aimed at ending the rogue regime’s nuclear program.
Pompeo said Washington was ready to resume talks with Pyongyang immediately.
“I’m hopeful that this will provide a good foundation for us to begin … these important discussions with the North Koreans,” Pompeo told reporters.
Trump and Moon would have “in-depth discussions on ways to work together to foster lasting peace through the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, while strengthening the two countries’ alliance,” Ko told reporters Monday.
Trump is considering a visit to the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, a South Korean official said. The president wanted to go there during a 2017 visit to South Korea but heavy fog prevented it.
Last year, Kim and Moon held their historic first summit in the DMZ — so a Trump visit to the border this weekend could spark speculation of a meeting with Kim there.
Another official in the South Korean presidential office said she was unaware of any plan for Trump to meet Kim.
Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore last June, when they agreed to establish new relations and work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
But in February, a second summit in Vietnam fell apart when the two sides were unable to bridge differences between US demands for denuclearization and North Korean demands for sanctions relief.