• US-North Korea, Kim Jong-un accepts the meeting with Donald Trump on the border
  • Trump in South Korea: 2-day visit after G20. Focus on how to restart negotiation with the North
  • G20, Trump-Xi Jinping meeting: agreement to resume duty negotiations

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June 30, 2019The handshake - almost surprisingly - between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump took place. The North Korean leader has agreed to meet the US president on the border between the two Koreas, in the DMZ demilitarized zone. And, for the first time for an incumbent American president, Trump crossed the demarcation line and entered North Korean territory. The head of the White House crossed the border alone at Kim's invitation, walking a few meters before reaching the road, stopping for a new, strong handshake.

Kim: "Historic Moment". Trump: "Great honor"
"It is a historic moment". A smiling Kim Jong-un greeted Donald Trump. The North Korean leader said he never expected to meet the US president in his own country. "Going beyond the line" was a great honor, "said Trump, arguing that the one with Kim is" a great friendship ".

Kim: "Surprised by the invitation, positive meeting for the future"
Kim Jong-un said he was very surprised by Donald Trump's invitation, arrived via Twitter, but acknowledged that the new third meeting with the American president will have a positive influence on future relations between countries. "I wanted to meet you again, especially for the two Koreas," he said, sitting next to Trump, after the historic handshake. "This place is a symbol of the unfortunate history of the past. For the two Koreas, having the opportunity to meet you again here is very significant. It means that we can feel at ease and meet with a positive disposition of spirit. I believe - he continued still Kim - that this could have a positive influence in all our future discussions ".

Trump invites Kim to the United States
The American president, during a brief meeting in the border village of Panmunjom, invited Kim to the United States. And he thanked him for accepting the meeting: "If you hadn't shown up, the press would have made me look very bad," he said. Then: "Our meeting was very good. Very strong and very solid". Trump also explained that the staff of the two countries will start working in the next two or three weeks to "see if it is possible or not to do something". According to the president at the end of the meeting, the two would have agreed on the decision to create a work team "to finalize the details" of an agreement for which "speed is not the goal" but rather "reach a comprehensive agreement".



Trump on the border between the Koreas: here there was war now peace
"Here there was a great conflict, a tremendous conflict and death all around here. It was a dangerous, very dangerous place," Trump had said, visiting for the first time an observation tower at the DMZ, before meeting the leader North Korean. "Now, it seems extremely peaceful. It is a completely different world and I still say it for those people who say that nothing has been achieved." Everything has changed since "I started meeting" Kim, he added.

The surprise president's move
The meeting, which Trump had suggested yesterday in a tweet sent during the G20 summit in Japan, could reinvigorate the stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program and sanctions. The meeting, hastily organized in the nuclear-free zone between the two Koreas, was the third among the two leaders after the summit in June 2018 in Singapore and their second summit in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi last February, closed with nothing. And it could also revive the head of the White House in the race, just begun, for the 2020 US presidential elections.