South Korea sees high chance of US-North Korea summit after March next year, lawmaker says
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SEOUL: South Korea's spy agency sees a high possibility that North Korea and the United States will hold a summit, suggesting that Pyongyang may pursue a meeting after March next year, a lawmaker said.
US President Donald Trump had repeatedly called for a meeting with reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to take place during his trip to South Korea last week, but Kim did not respond to his overtures.
"The NIS sees there is a high chance of a US-North Korea summit,” lawmaker Park Sun-won told reporters, after a parliamentary audit on the South's National Intelligence Service.
TRUMP AND KIM JONG UN MET TWICE IN FIRST TERM
Park said North Korea was analysing the Trump administration's working-level officials responsible for North Korean affairs.
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He said the NIS believed the North might pursue a summit between Trump and Kim next March, after a flurry of events such as South Korea-US joint military drills, the North's military parade and party congress early next year.
North Korean leader Kim has said he would be willing to talk to the US if Washington dropped demands for denuclearisation.
Trump told reporters last week, as he visited South Korea ahead of an APEC summit: "We'll come back, and we'll, at some point in the not-too-distant future, meet with North Korea".
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the possibility of a summit.
Trump and Kim held summits in 2018 and 2019 before negotiations broke down over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons arsenal. North Korea is under heavy international sanctions over those weapons, as well as its ballistic missiles.
Kim does not seem to have any major health issues after suggestions he may be suffering from high blood pressure, Park said.
Kim Ju Ae, the North Korean leader's teenage daughter, is solidifying her position as his likely successor, but has kept a low profile over the past 60 days to avoid taking the spotlight from her father, the lawmaker said.
She was thrust into the media spotlight when she accompanied her father on a visit to China in early September.
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