Kim 'warmly' invites Trump for new summit

International Desk: North Korea's Kim Jong-un has written to US President Donald Trump asking for a follow-up to their historic summit, the White House says.

The US says it is already looking at scheduling a new meeting.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the "very warm" letter showed Pyongyang's "continued commitment to focus on denuclearisation".

Negotiations on the topic appeared to have stalled after the two leaders' historic summit in Singapore in June.

"The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the president, which we are open to and are already in the process of co-ordinating that," Ms Sanders said.

She gave no indication of when a second meeting between the two leaders could potentially take place.

But she praised the letter as "very warm, very positive" and praised North Korea's military parade last weekend, saying that "for once was not about their nuclear arsenal". She attributed that to the "tremendous success" of Mr Trump's policies.

While North Korea did roll out soldiers, tanks and other weaponry, the parade did not display any intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the parade marking its 70th anniversary, reports say.

A display of ICBMs - which can reach the US mainland, potentially carrying a nuclear warhead - would have been seen as provocative.

At their June summit in Singapore, the two leaders signed a vague agreement to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

But it did not include a timeline, details or any mechanisms to verify the process.

High-level talks and visits have continued, but the most recent scheduled trip by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was called off at the last minute.

Both sides have also blamed each other for stalling negotiations while insisting that they were committed to the process.

Agencies


risingbd/Dhaka/Sep 11, 2018/Nasim