Trump Creates History by Meeting Kim in North Korea

US President Donald Trump made history on Sunday when he stepped onto the North Korean soil as he met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at a time when there is a high diplomatic drama going on surrounding Korean Peninsula. 

Donald Trump thus becomes the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea, thus brought Kim back over the dividing line for a meeting where they agreed to start working on the talks, that involves Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons.

After the meeting, Donald Trump also invited the young North Korean leader to the White House “anytime he wants to do it”. As he said, “It is a great day for the world and it’s an honor for me to be here. A lot of great things are happening”.

Kim also said as they sat down for discussions, “their handshake of peace in a location that was the symbol of the division of north and south shows that we are willing to put the past behind us”. 

The impromptu meeting in the military zone between South Korea and North Korea was arranged after Donald Trump issued an invitation on Twitter on Saturday calling for negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington to break the long-standing deadlock between the two countries.

Their first summit between the two countries took place last year amidst world attention in Singapore but failed to produce any productive result. The second meeting was held in the month of February this year in Vietnam, which was intended to put flesh on those bones, but broke up without any agreement.

Thus the contact between the two nations started to become minimal, while Pyongyang continued issuing frequent criticisms on the US position. But it is believed that the two leaders have exchanged a series of letters before Trump turned to Twitter to issue his offer to meet Kim at the DMZ.

Trump’s entry into the North Korean soil is an extraordinary sequel to the scene at Kim’s first summit with South Korean leader Moon last year, when he invited the South Korean leader to cross the Military Demarcation Line, as the border between the two Koreas is officially known.

Moon, during last year’s Winter Olympics, seized the opportunity to break the peace process between Pyongyang and Washington, after tensions soared in 2017 as the North carried out multiple missiles launches and its biggest nuclear test to date.

The significance of the latest meeting in the no-mans-land, which is often referred to as the world’s last Cold War frontier was obvious, says Stimson Centre Asia analyst David Kim. As he says, “It is historic for Trump to be the first US President enter North Korea soil, historic for Moon to meet, albeit briefly, with both leaders”.

The meeting had the “potential to kick-start stalled negotiations”, but also alerts, “What we need is substance, not theatrics”.

This is also important because North Korea, which has carried out six nuclear tests and has developed missiles which are capable of reaching out to the entire US mainland, would be willing to give up its nuclear program in exchange for relief from the US sanctions, that have crippled its economy.