Trump offers to shake hands with N Korea’s Kim at DMZ

Osaka, June 29 

US President Donald Trump on Saturday invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet for a historic handshake at the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula, and said he would have “no problem” stepping over the border.

The invitation issued on Twitter caught observers by surprise. If Kim accepts, it would be the third meeting between the leaders of the two wartime enemies amid efforts to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The North’s official KCNA news agency quoted Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui as saying the offer was “a very interesting suggestion” but that no official request had been received.

Trump lobbed the shock invitation on Twitter from the G20 summit in Osaka, saying: “if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” 

He later said he would have “no problem” stepping into the North with Kim-in what would be a dramatic gesture re-enacting an extraordinary 2018 scene when the young leader invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to walk over the Military Demarcation Line that forms the border between the Koreas.

The US leader said the invitation was spontaneous, but it comes amid a recent flurry of diplomacy over North Korea’s nuclear programme after a Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi collapsed without an agreement. — AFP