Vietnam and Singapore shortlisted for NK-US summit

Published : Jan 11, 2019 - 11:03 Updated : Jan 11, 2019 - 13:36

Vietnam and Singapore are likely to be shortlisted to host a second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the US President Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs Ministry officials said on condition of anonymity Thursday.

“(The venues you should pay attention to) are those mentioned by media including Vietnam, Singapore and Hawaii,” one ministry official said. “But Hawaii is said to be an unrealistic location as it doesn’t have a North Korean embassy there,” another official added.

(AP)

The site that Kim and Trump will pick for the next meeting has been attracting keen attention, especially after President Moon Jae-in said Thursday the summit will take place soon and Trump said that the US is “negotiating a location” on Sunday.

Singapore and Vietnam are within flying distance of the North Korean leader’s plane, the Chammae-1, which is capable of flying a distance of 7,000 kilometers. This matches Trump’s comment that the summit will be held “within plane distance,” in early December.

Panmunjom, the truce village in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean peninsula, was one that the South Korean government hoped would host the meeting, a meeting which Trump expected to take place in January or February. Kim and Moon held their first summit in Panmunjom on April 27.

“We would like to hold the meeting at Panmunjom, but the probability of this becoming a reality seems to be slim,” one of the officials said.

North Korea has embassies in Vietnam and Singapore and can run a team there to prepare for the envisioned summit with Trump.

Vietnam is known to have expressed an interest in hosting the meeting while Singapore is where the first historic summit between the two leaders was held in June.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that White House scouting teams visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii to inspect whether the locations are suitable for the meeting.

By Park Han-na(hnpark@heraldcorp.com)