U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Tuesday in his State of the Union address that he will meet with the top leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un, on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam. Speaking to a joint session of Congress in the House of Representatives, Trump said that as part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one. Chairman Kim and I will meet again on February 27 and 28 in Vietnam, he added. U.S. State Department said earlier on Monday that Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for DPRK-related issues, will travel to Pyongyang later on Wednesday for meetings with his DPRK counterpart, Kim Hyok Chol, to lay the groundwork for the second Trump-Kim summit and to advance further progress on the commitments the President and Chairman Kim made in Singapore: complete denuclearization, transforming U.S.-DPRK relations, and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. U.S. media reported that the specific location of the second Trump-Kim meeting would be discussed during Bieguns stay in the DPRK and announced later. Trump met with Kim Jong Un for the first time in Singapore on June 12, reaching several consensuses that have led to the improvement of the U.S.-DPRK relations. However, differences between the two sides remain over key issues including the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions on the DPRK and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. Earlier last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats claimed that we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons. Later on Jan. 30, Trump said that progress is being made in negotiations with Pyongyang and that he saw a decent chance of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. On Jan. 31, Biegun said in a speech that the United States is seeking to achieve a set of concrete deliverables through working-level negotiations with Pyongyang ahead of the scheduled leaders summit. We expect to hold working-level negotiations with our North Korean counterparts in advance of the summit, with the intention of achieving a set of concrete deliverables ... a roadmap of negotiations and declarations going forward, and a shared understanding of the desired outcomes of our joint efforts, he said. During his Jan. 7-10 trip to China, his fourth visit to China in less than a year, Kim Jong Un said that Pyongyang will make efforts for the second summit between DPRK and U.S. leaders to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community. The DPRK leader also thanked China for its related efforts. Xinhua
