Earlier this month, Donald Trump raised a lot of eyebrows when he indicated that under the right circumstances he ‘would be honored’ to meet North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, presumably to talk about how one might persuade the DPRK leader from using nuclear weapons to murder thousands of people. At the time, Trump told Bloomberg News that such a meeting couldn’t be ruled out if details were hashed out in advance that made both sides comfortable with the talks, via Bloomberg News:
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
“Most political people would never say that,” Trump said of his willingness to meet with the reclusive Kim, “but I’m telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.”
Now, according to an Al-Jazeera report, the North Korean’s may be unexpectedly swiping right on Trump’s invitation, also reportedly agreeing that a meet-up between the two countries to talk shop might be possible if the parameters are established beforehand. The report indicates Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s foreign ministry director general for US affairs, recently made comments that have some believe are the first step to the meeting actually being a reality. Asked about the comments Trump made of the possibility of a meeting, Son Hui reportedly told news outlets her country feels the same way as the U.S. president, via Al-Jazeera:
“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,”
The comments came as Hui was speaking to reporters in Beijing on Saturday. The North Korean diplomat was on her way to Pyongyang after making an appearance in Norway where she informal had informal unrelated talks with former U.S. officials and scholars.
These comments mark the first sign that North Korea might be willing to actually come back to the table to discuss their nuclear program and could possibly mean Trump’s strategy of describing Kim-Jong Un as a “smart cookie,” could pay dividends. The president has recently implored the Chinese to help get North Korea to put a halt to their ever-strengthening nuclear weapon program, but behind-the-scenes attempts by both sides and NATO sanctions didn’t seem to have made the dictatorship blink until now.
If North Korea and the United States are to have any talks, the subject of the freeing of American’s being held in the country for various alleged crimes against the state is sure to come up. Just in the last month, North Korea has jailed two American professors for what the country deemed actions that could be an attempt to overthrow their government. The alleged “hostile acts” toward the Pyongyang regime reportedly include a secret plot by the United States to assassinate Kim Jong-Un using a chemical agent. That will probably also come up at the meeting.
(Via Bloomberg News, Al-Jazeera, and NBC News)