By Kim Young Shin
Photos = Yonhap News

The historic summit between the U.S. and North Korean leaders, which will change the fate of the Korean Peninsula, began at 9 a.m. local time in Singapore on June 12.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Chairman of the State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un held their first-ever face-to-face meeting at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. The two leaders, Kim in a standard North Korean inminbok suit, the "people's clothes," and Trump in his regular suit, shook hands for eight seconds and together walked to the meeting room.

The two leaders will be discussing ways to denuclearize North Korea and to guarantee the existence of the North Korean regime.

President Trump began with the opening words at the summit. “We are going to have a great discussion and I think it will be tremendously successful,” said Trump. “It’s my honor and we will have a terrific relationship. I have no doubt.”

“It wasn’t an easy path we took to come so far. We had a lingering past that stopped us and wrong prejudices and customs that blinded us,” said Chairman Kim. “We overcame all of that and finally got here.”



The NK-U.S. summit will begin with a one-on-one meeting, with only translators in attendance, and then continue to an expanded bilateral meeting and a working lunch. Trump will participate in a press conference after the summit and return to the U.S. at 8 p.m. that evening.

At the expanded bilateral meeting, the U.S. delegation will include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. The North Korean delegation is expected to include Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea Kim Yong Chol and First Vice Department Director Kim Yo Jong of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

ysk1111@korea.kr