Breaking: North Korea Extends Invitation To Donald Trump For Talks, He Accepts

According to the Washington Post, South Korea’s National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong who participated in delegation-level talks with North Korean President Kim Jong-un earlier this week has delivered an invitation by Pyongyang to U.S. President Donald Trump. Kim Jong-Un has reportedly asked Donald Trump to join talks to stabilize the Korean Peninsula.

The South Korean officials visiting the White House on Thursday talked to Trump and they delivered a letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump inviting him to meet, according to a  former US senior official who spoke to CNN.

In a stunning development, Donald Trump has accepted the invitation to hold an unprecedented summit meeting to discuss the future of the North Korean regime’s nuclear and missile programme, a South Korean official said.

South Korean officials visiting the White House said that Trump said he was prepared to meet Kim “by May”. If the meeting takes place it would be the first ever between leaders of the two countries.

The news came after a South Korean delegation came to the White House to brief officials on its most recent talks with North Korea -- the most significant talks between the two countries in more than a decade. This was also the first time North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un met with South Korean representatives after assuming power seven years ago.

Senior US officials reportedly said North Korea has offered to suspend their nuclear missile testing alongside their invitation for talks.

The invitation for talks can be seen as a remarkable turnaround by North Korea which had just months ago tested an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile capable of carrying nuclear war heads to the North American continent. These tests had then been followed by aggressive rhetoric by both North Korea and the U.S. raising the prospect of the possibility of a nuclear conflict between the two countries.

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council on Monday regarding the developing situation of talks with North Korea and provide details of talks that happened between the North and South Korean delegations. Donald Trump for his part had expressed caution after the initial talks that happened in Pyongyang between the South Korean delegation and Kim Jong-un saying that the U.S. is ready to ‘go either way’.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 09, 2018 06:16 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).