FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Trump Won’t Rule Out Direct Talks with Kim Jong-un

March 4, 2018 (EIRNS)—At what Reuters described as a “joke-filled monologue” at the Gridiron Dinner in Washington, last night, President Trump suggested that the United States might soon talk to North Korea. As Reuters reports the President’s remarks,

“Now we are talking and they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago. They said that ‘we would like to talk.’ And I said, ‘So would we, but you have to denuke, you have to denuke,’ We will be meeting and we’ll see if anything positive happens.”

he added.

“I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t,” Trump said, and added a barbed joke: “As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is going ahead with his diplomacy, naming his National Security Council chief Chung Eui-yong as his special envoy to North Korea. Chung will be leading a delegation that leaves for Pyongyang March 5, including Suh Hoon, chief of the National Intelligence Service, Vice Minister of Unification Chun Hae-sung, senior National Intelligence Service Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a Cheong Wa Dae (presidential) official.

“The ... delegation will stay in Pyongyang for two days, and hold discussions on establishing peace, ... and improving inter-Korean relations with high-level North Korean officials,”

Yoon Young-chan, senior secretary for public relations, told the Korea Herald.

Yoon further said that members of the special delegation would visit the United States after their return from the North to discuss the results of the visit.