SINGAPORE – The White House says in a statement ahead of President Donald Trump’s historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that the talks with North Korea talks are moving “more quickly than expected.” The White House says Trump now plans to depart Singapore on Tuesday evening ahead of schedule.
The White House says Trump will address the media on Tuesday following his summit with Kim and depart Singapore at approximately 8 p.m. local time for the United States. The president had been expected to leave Singapore on Wednesday morning.
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Trump is set to meet with Kim in Singapore on Tuesday morning.
You can watch the latest coverage, live pictures and updates right here on ClickOnDetroit.
Monday: Between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET: Leaders arrive at Capella Hotel. Trump and Kim will arrive at different times and at different doors. They will enter the hotel and quickly go into hold rooms.
Monday: 9 p.m. ET: Trump and Kim meet, shake hands and walk down one of the porticos.
North Korea gets first big dose of Trump summit news
North Koreans got their first big dose of news Monday that their leader Kim Jong Un had arrived in Singapore for what even the state-run media was calling a historic meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The news covered the front page of the ruling party’s newspaper and was the top — and only — item on the first news broadcast of the day on Korean Central Television, which for many North Koreans is the only channel available.
People crowded around poster stands at subway stations around the capital to read the news and gathered at noon in front of the city’s main train station to watch a big screen display of images of Kim getting off the special Air China flight that took him to Singapore.
A report by the Korea Central News Agency said the summit would have “wide-ranging and profound talks” and noted that it is being held “under the great attention and expectation of the whole world.”
The relative speed with which the state media got the news of Kim’s arrival in Singapore out to the North Korean public suggests a certain level of confidence that the meeting will go well — or at least well enough. For the North, Kim Jong Un has already won a huge propaganda bonus by merely having the summit and sitting down as an equal with the U.S. president, an accomplishment his father and grandfather sought but could never realize.
Trump expresses optimism amid final Kim summit preparations
On the eve of their unprecedented summit, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prepared Tuesday for a meeting that could define the fate of millions, along with their own political futures.
Trump forecast a “nice” outcome, while Kim spent the day out of view as both sides finalized preparations for the meeting, which was to kick off at 9 a.m. Tuesday with a handshake between Trump and Kim, an image sure to be devoured around the world. Trump and Kim planned to meet one on one, joined only by translators, for up to two hours before admitting their respective advisers, a U.S. official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations and insisted on anonymity.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Monday that ongoing talks between the two countries were advancing well, but stressed the meeting would be the beginning of a process that would “set the conditions for future talks.”
Pompeo added that the U.S. was prepared to take action to provide North Korea with “sufficient certainty” that denuclearization “is not something that ends badly for them.”
He would not say whether that included the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, but stressed the context of the discussions was “radically different than ever before.”