U.S. President Donald Trump said he spoke with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Saturday morning over the impending summit with North Korea.
On Twitter, Trump said the two “had a long and very good talk,” working toward setting a date and location for the talks with North Korea.
Defence Secretary Jim Mattis also held discussions with his South Korean counterpart Saturday.
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Mattis and Defence Minister Song Young-moo said they were committed to “a diplomatic resolution that achieves complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of the North, according to the Pentagon’s chief spokeswoman, Dana W. White. Mattis also reaffirmed “the ironclad U.S. commitment” to defend its ally “using the full spectrum of U.S. capabilities.”
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Jae-in met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in historic talks Friday in the first inter-Korean summit in over a decade.
The pair agreed to work with China and the U.S. in seeking an official peace agreement for the Korean War which began in the 1950s.
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Jong-un and Jae-in were also looking to put an end to nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.
The summit was held at the village of Panmunjom in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone at the border that has divided the Koreas for more than six decades.
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At a White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, Trump basked in the afterglow of the meeting between Jong-ub and Jae-in, and said he has a responsibility to try to achieve peace and denuclearization.
“And if I can’t do it, it’ll be a very tough time for a lot of countries, and a lot of people. It’s certainly something that I hope I can do for the world,” he said.
*With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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