[Breaking] Moon-Trump summit begins

Published : Jun 30, 2017 - 23:18 Updated : Jun 30, 2017 - 23:53

President Moon Jae-in (left) speaks at the outset of his summit with US President Donald Trump (right) at the White House in Washington on Friday. (Yonhap)

President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump began talks in their first summit in Washington at 10:15 a.m. on Friday. The one-on-one meeting between the leaders of South Korea and the US was expected to last about 20 minutes. The meeting was to then be followed by an extended summit meeting with key cabinet members of the two countries in attendance. Moon and Trump will hold a joint press briefing once the meetings are over.

The summit, and the extended summit, is expected to deal with a range of issues in bilateral relations, as well as developments surrounding the Korean Peninsula. North Korea and its nuclear and missile ambitions are expected to be central to the talks, along with trade issues.

The overall tone of the meeting was set Thursday at a welcoming dinner hosted by the White House. At the dinner, the two leaders reportedly discussed many of the issues raised in the media, ranging from trade issues to North Korea. While South Korea has highlighted security issues and the Korea-US alliance throughout Moon’s five-day visit, Trump has fed speculations that trade issues may be higher on his agenda.

In a characteristically outspoken manner, Trump wrote via his Twitter account shortly after the dinner that he had a good meeting with Moon, and that “a new trade deal” was among topics they discussed.

By Choi He-suk
Korea Herald correspondent
(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)