Trump Expects to Meet With N.Korea's Kim in Three to Four Weeks

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump expects his historic meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un will take place “over the next three or four weeks.”

“Strength is going to keep us out of nuclear war, not get us in,” Trump told a rally in Washington, Michigan, on Saturday. Earlier, he said details of the summit are being ironed out, and that he'd spoken with the leaders of South Korea and Japan about preparations for the meeting.

The call early Saturday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in was “a long and very good talk,” Trump said.

On Friday, Trump said that the potential location of a meeting with the North Korean leader had been narrowed down to two or three locations that he didn't specify, adding “hopefully we're going to have great success.”

“I don't think he's playing,” Trump said Friday of Kim, who earlier held a historic meeting with South Korea's Moon. The two agreed to work toward formally ending their decades-long war and pursue the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

Moon's office said Sunday that he and Trump agreed in their phone call that the U.S. president should meet with Kim as soon as possible in a bid to maintain “the momentum of the success” of Friday's historic meeting of the Korean leaders.

“We will, I think, come up with a solution and, if we don't, we leave the room with great respect and we just keep it going,” said Trump, speaking to reporters at the beginning of a meeting in the Oval Office with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Later, at a joint news conference with Merkel, the U.S. president added that he and Kim “have a very good working relationship” and “a lot of good things are happening.”

Momentum Building

Trump has said he hopes to resolve a standoff between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. He'd previously said the two countries were looking at five locations for the summit, which would be the first meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president.

A South Korean newspaper reported this week that short list of locations for the summit had been whittled down to Mongolia and Singapore.

Positive Steps

“A lot of very positive things happened over the last 24 hours,” Trump said. “We'll be setting up a meeting very shortly. We have it broken down to probably two sites now, two or three sites, locations. And hopefully we're going to have great success.”

Trump hailed Friday's Moon-Kim meeting, declaring “KOREAN WAR TO END!” on Twitter.

South Korea had long refused to participate in talks to end the Korean War, leaving an uneasy truce between North Korea and China on one side and United Nations forces -- led by the U.S. -- on the other.

Although China long ago withdrew its troops, more than 28,000 American personnel remain based in South Korea, which the Kim regime views as an enduring threat.

The meeting between the two Korean leaders produced unprecedented scenes, starting with Kim's step over the ankle-high concrete slab dividing the two nations -- and then his walk back across the border, hand-in-hand with Moon. Later, the leaders planted a tree and talked privately for 30 minutes with television cameras rolling.

Kim called for frequent meetings between the leaders. And he capped it off with live remarks to reporters, something no other North Korean leader had done before.

‘Bad Manners'

It remains to be seen whether North Korea will meet Trump's demand to give up its nuclear weapons and missiles.

Moon's office said Sunday in Seoul that he and Trump agreed a detailed action plan for denuclearization should be prepared at the Trump-Kim summit.

One ominous sign was commentary from North Korean state-run media following the Korean leaders' meeting calling on the U.S. to drop its “anachronistic hostile policy” and “bad manners.” It declared North Korea a “world-level politico-ideological and military power” and said it would contribute to building “a world without nuclear weapons.”

Pompeo Meeting

Still, new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met with Kim over the Easter weekend, said he has “a sense” that the North Korean leader is serious about denuclearization. Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Friday, less than 24 hours after being sworn in, Pompeo echoed some of Trump's favorite phrases, saying an agreement with Kim would be a “wonderful thing.”

In an interview to be broadcast Sunday, Pompeo told ABC's Jonathan Karl that his talk with Kim was a “good conversation” about “serious matters” and Kim was “very well prepared.”

Kim is “prepared to ... lay out a map that would help us achieve” denuclearization, he said. “When I left, Kim Jong Un understood the mission exactly as I described it today.” The administration's objective is “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.”

Trump said Saturday that he'd spoken with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “to inform him of the ongoing negotiations.” On Friday, Trump tweeted his thanks to China's president Xi Jinping on North Korea. “Without him it would have been a much longer, tougher, process!” Trump repeated his praise of Xi at the Michigan rally.

--With assistance from Andy Sharp and Jonathan Stearns

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net, Kanga Kong in Seoul at kkong50@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey, Ros Krasny