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North and South Korean officials meet at border to discuss summit meeting
Senior negotiators from North and South Korea met on their countries’ border on Thursday to prepare for the summit meeting planned for late April between Kim Jong Un, the North’s leader, and President Moon Jae-in of the South.
Kim accepted Moon’s offer of a meeting early this month, part of a flurry of diplomacy around Pyongyang’s nuclear program that began with the North’s participation last month in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Kim also offered to meet directly with President Donald Trump, after his discussions with Moon, and Trump quickly accepted. No date for that meeting has been set.
South Korean envoys who met with Kim in Pyongyang early this month said he expressed willingness to negotiate with the United States about normalizing ties and giving up his country’s nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees. Kim also promised to suspend all nuclear and missile tests while talks were underway, the envoys said.
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This week, Kim surprised both South Korea and the United States by making a secret visit to Beijing, his first trip outside North Korea since taking power. He met with President Xi Jinping of China, in a bid to mend frayed ties with the North’s traditional communist ally before his planned meetings with Moon and Trump.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
CHOE SANG-HUN © 2018 The New York Times
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