South Korea is expected to announce Thursday night that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is extending an invitation to meet with President Trump, a senior U.S. official revealed to Fox News.
South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong will also announce an upcoming meeting between South Korean president Moon Jae-in and the North Korean leader, Fox News has learned.
There currently are no plans to change U.S.-South Korea military exercises nor is their a commitment by Kim Jong Un to stop his nuclear testing.
Earlier Thursday, President Trump announced that South Korea would be making a “major statement” about North Korea at 7 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, Fox News confirmed.
Chung, who met at the White House Thursday with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, is expected to make the statement in the James Brady press briefing room at the White House.
The president made the announcement, in his first-ever visit to the press briefing room, briefly popping his head into the room to update reporters.
Chung and other South Korean officials briefed the White House Thursday on a potential diplomatic opening with North Korea after a year of escalating tensions.
Chung told reporters Tuesday that he had received a message from North Korea intended for the United States, but did not disclose what it was.
The expected announcement comes after hours of consultations at the White House between administration officials and South Korean officials over recent talks with North Korea.
Kim Jong Un© ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong Un
The dialogue in North Korea concluded with an invitation to the U.S. to reopen direct talks with Pyongyang, saying it would suspend its nuclear tests during such talks.
Trump has expressed an openness to the invitation, saying, “We’ll see.”
Trump and Kim have had a contentious relationship during the last year as both men dramatically increased the rhetoric against the other amid the backdrop of increased nuclear and missile testing by the North Korean regime.
In August Trump warned Kim that, if pressed, the U.S. would unleash “fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” At the time, the president argued that Kim had “been very threatening beyond a normal state,” adding that the regime “best not make any more threats to the United States.”
Threats and counter-threats continued into 2018.
“The U.S. should know that the button for nuclear weapons is on my table,” Kim said during a Jan. 1 speech, according to a translation. “The entire area of the U.S. mainland is within our nuclear strike range,” he continued, adding that “the United States can never start a war against me and our country.”
The next day Trump hit back against Kim by claiming that the U.S. nuclear arsenal was more powerful. “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’” Trump tweeted. “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
No mek him galang. Kim a madd madd man, madda dan him suh…..