An envoy from South Korea announced Thursday outside the White House that Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were expected to meet face-to-face by May. Kim extended the invitation and has reportedly put denuclearization on the table as a carrot.
"I told President Trump that in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he's committed to denuclearization. Kim pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests," said South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong.
The New York Times writes:
The South Korean official, Chung Eui-yong, who conveyed the invitation told reporters that Mr. Trump had accepted it and would meet with Mr. Kim by May.
For Mr. Trump, a meeting with Mr. Kim, a leader he has derided as “Little Rocket Man,” is a breathtaking gamble. No sitting American president has ever met a North Korean leader, and Mr. Trump himself had ruled out direct talks unless North Korea takes measurable steps toward relinquishing its nuclear arsenal.
National security expert Evelyn Farkas told MSNBC that, while talks should go forward, we must continue to pressure North Korea with sanctions because talks have fallen apart before.
I think it's really important to remember, I mentioned earlier, twice before we've been here with the North Koreans where they offered to freeze their nuclear weapons programs and twice before, we actually let up on our sanctions and the negotiations fell part. The North Koreans pocketed what we gave them, the assistance and various other things and they left the negotiating table. So I really believe while we should absolutely go forward and we should pocket the concessions we can get from them, and we should negotiate in good faith, but we needed to keep the pressure on. We can't agree we're going to take the pressure off.