Vietnam fully ready to host next Trump-Kim summit

By Vu Anh   January 24, 2019 | 02:13 am PT
Vietnam fully ready to host next Trump-Kim summit
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un shake hands after signing documents during a summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore June 12, 2018. Photo by Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
Vietnam is confident of its readiness to host the second Kim Jong Un-Donald Trump meeting, says Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

"We believe in our ability to organize such kind of events after our success in hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2017," foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told the press Thursday.

She said Vietnam is "yet to have specific information on the time and venue for the second U.S.-North Korea summit," but the nation is willing to actively contribute to building peace and stability in the Korean peninsula.

The White House had said January 18 that the next meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will take place in late February.

Trump told reporters last Saturday "we picked a country" for the meeting, without giving more details.

AFP earlier quoted a Vietnamese government source as saying that "logistical preparations" were under way to host the meeting, which would most likely happen in the capital Hanoi or the coastal city of Da Nang. Bloomberg has said that Ho Chi Minh City is also an option.

The U.S. President joined leaders of 20 Pacific Rim economies, including China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, for the APEC 2017 summit in Da Nang.

The South Korean ambassador to Vietnam, Kim Do-hyon, previously said that he highly regarded Vietnam’s contributions to denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula.

"Vietnam has good relations with both South and North Korea and the U.S., and has experience in successfully hosting many international summits in recent years such as APEC," he said.

Kim Jong Un and Trump first met in June in Singapore, where they signed a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work toward the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Progress stalled soon afterwards as Pyongyang and Washington, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, disagreed over what it meant.

The U.S. expects Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal, doggedly built by the Kim regime as a bulwark against military action by opposing countries.

 
 
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