Trump Kim summit: North Korean leader arrives in Singapore

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in Singapore for their scheduled summit meeting with US President Donald Trump.

The historic meeting between the 2 leaders will require place in the island resort of Sentosa on Tuesday.

It‘s the very first-time a North Korean leader has met a sitting US president.

Before setting off, Mr Trump described the summit like a one-time shot peaceful and said the 2 were in unknown territory inside the truest sense.

The US president will arrive afterward Sunday.

Washington hopes the summit will kick-start a procedure that eventually sees Mr Kim quit his nuclear weapons.

The 2 leaders have experienced an extraordinary up-and-down relationship in the last 18 months, trading insults and threatening war before abruptly changing tack and moving towards a face-to-face meeting.

Both leaders will meet Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong before their summit.

How did we calculate here?

Mr Trump's first year in office was marked by bitter exchanges with Mr Kim as North Korea conducted several ballistic missile tests in defiance of international warnings.

The US president vowed to unleash fire and fury if Pyongyang kept threatening the US. He mentioned Mr Kim as little rocket man.

In return, Mr Kim called him mentally deranged and also a dotard.

Regardless of the White House's maximum pressure campaign, the North remained defiant and performed its sixth nuclear test in September 2017. Soon after, Mr Kim declared that his country had achieved its mission of learning to be a nuclear state, with missiles that can reach the US.

But in early 2018, North Korea began attempts to enhance relations with South Korea by sending a team and delegates towards the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

In March, Mr Trump surprised the planet by accepting an invitation from Mr Kim - delivered via Seoul - to satisfy personally.

Ever since that day, the trail towards the summit is rocky and uncertain, with Mr Trump at one point calling it off completely. But after some diplomatic scrambling, the 2 leaders will now take a seat together.

Singapore is just the third country Mr Kim has visited since he became North Korea's leader in 2011.

He made his first trip abroad as leader to China in March, and in April he became the very first North Korean leader to step foot in South Korea when he met South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Panmunjom on the mutual border.

It‘s thought however that Mr Kim visited boarding school in Switzerland. Recently, South Korea provided him with Swiss rösti with a summit meeting.

What conduct the two sides want?

The US wants North Korea to eliminate its nuclear weapons inside an irreversible manner that may be verified internationally. Only when steps begin to become given that direction does it receive relief coming from the grip of UN sanctions, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis recently said.

However this doesn‘t mean the US is expecting to obtain a final deal in Singapore. President Trump has described it like a get-to-know-you situation and said : It is going to become a process.

Analysts claim that Mr Kim, by winning the prestige of the meeting using the world's most powerful leader, has already gained a victory. Additionally they question why he would quit his nuclear weapons after pushing so difficult to obtain them.

Some say he would never do it right, unless other consumers upon the Korean peninsula disarms too - including the US.

However, Mr Kim has also said he now wants to pay attention to building the North Korean economy - and thus wants sanctions relief and international investment.

The question is what concessions He‘s ready to make, and whether he is going to stick with any promises made. Pledges to scrap the nuclear programme happen to be made before by his predecessors.

What could actually happen?

It is hard to mention, but Mr Trump has signalled that they might sign an agreement to formally end the Korean War, which ended inside a truce in 1953. Doing that, would probably be the easy part, he said.

The US president has also said that in case he thinks things are going badly, he is going to walk from the meeting, but when things go well, Mr Kim could receive an invitation towards the White House.

SOURCE : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44429240