NKorea's Kim wishes Trump a speedy recovery: KCNA

Yahoo – AFP, October 3, 2020

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "offered his sympathy" to US President Donald
Trump and his wife, the official Korean Central News Agency said speaks during a
meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of
Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a message to Donald Trump after the US president's diagnosis with coronavirus, wishing him a quick recovery, state media said Saturday. 

"He offered his sympathy to the president and the first lady," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. 

"He sincerely hoped that they would be recovered as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it. He sent warm greetings to them." 

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said it was the first time Kim had sent well wishes to a world leader who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. 

Trump announced in the early hours of Friday that he had tested positive for Covid-19. Later in the day, he headed to a military hospital for further observation and treatment. 

Trump and Kim held three high-profile meetings starting in June 2018, after an uptick in tensions between Washington and Pyongyang at the start of Trump's term. 

But nothing concrete emerged in terms of Pyongyang's denuclearization, and talks have been officially at a standstill for months. 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in mid-September that talks were ongoing behind the scenes. 

Trump has consistently portrayed his close relationship with Kim as one of his foreign policy achievements.

Israel and UAE to normalise ties in 'historic' US-brokered deal

Yahoo – AFP, Mohamad Ali Harissi and Sarah Stewart, August 13, 2020

Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world, and a symbol of the oil-rich UAE

Israel and the UAE agreed Thursday to normalise ties in a landmark US-brokered deal, only the third such accord the Jewish state has struck with an Arab nation, in which it pledged to suspend annexation of Palestinian lands.

The bombshell news was broken by US President Donald Trump, in a tweet hailing a "HUGE breakthrough" and a "Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends".

Establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and Washington's Middle East allies, including the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, has been central to Trump's regional strategy to contain Iran, also an arch-foe of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a "historic day" and would launch a "new era" for the Arab world and Israel.

US President Donald Trump announced the agreement between the United 

Arab Emirates and Israel to normalize diplomatic ties

The Palestinians strongly rejected the deal, calling it a "betrayal" of their cause, including their claim to Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

They also announced they were withdrawing their ambassador from the Emirates, and demanded an emergency Arab League meeting.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which runs the coastal Gaza Strip, quickly said the agreement "does not serve the Palestinian cause".

A joint statement by Trump, Netanyahu and UAE's leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan announced that they had "agreed to the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates".

It added that Israel would "suspend declaring sovereignty" over occupied Palestinian West Bank areas -- an idea proposed in Trump's controversial earlier plan to resolve the conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a "historic day" and 

represented a "new era" for the Arab world and Israel

Sheikh Mohamed quickly stressed in a tweet that "during a call with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories".

But Netanyahu said shortly afterwards in a national television address that he had only agreed to delay, not cancel, the annexations, that the plans remained "on the table" and that he would "never give up our rights to our land".

The controversial Trump plan, unveiled in January, had offered a path for Israel to annex territory and Jewish West Bank settlements, communities considered illegal under international law.

The Palestinians rejected it outright as biased and untenable, as did Israel's Arab neighbours, and it sparked fears of further escalation in a tense region. 

Protestors confront Israeli forces as a structure serving as a home to a 

Palestinian family is demolished in the southern West Bank on August 11

'Things are happening'

Israel has had difficult relations and several wars with its Muslim and Arab neighbours since its founding in 1948, with most states ruling out relations until the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is resolved.

Thursday's deal would make the UAE only the third Arab country to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel, after its peace deals with former enemies Egypt and Jordan.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, which signed a treaty with Israel in 1979 to opposition from across the Arab world, praised the deal on "the halt of Israel's annexation of Palestinian land," and said he hoped it would bring "peace".

The deal marks a major foreign policy achievement for Trump as he heads into a difficult campaign for re-election in November.

The city hall in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv is lit up in the colours of

the United Arab Emirates national flag

His presumptive Democratic challenger for the presidency Joe Biden welcomed the "historic" agreement and called the UAE's move a "badly-needed act of statesmanship".

Trump hinted to reporters that more diplomatic breakthroughs between Israel and Arab countries in the region were expected, but gave no further details.

"Things are happening that I can't talk about," he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described it as "a historic day and a significant step forward for peace in the Middle East".

"The United States hopes that this brave step will be the first in a series of agreements that ends 72 years of hostilities in the region," Pompeo said, adding that the formal agreement would be signed at the White House at a future date.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world, and a symbol of the oil-rich UAE

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP the deal was "a milestone in Arab acceptance of Israel in the region".

It was also be "a brake on annexation, which would jeopardise Israel's peace with Jordan and Israel's own future as a Jewish, democratic state", he said. 

'Annexation trap'

Israeli and UAE delegations will meet in the coming weeks to discuss investment, tourism, direct flights, security and the establishment of embassies, they said.

The trio were confident of further similar deals with other countries, their statement added.

Israeli and UAE delegations will meet in the coming weeks to discuss investment,

tourism, direct flights, security and the establishment of reciprocal embassies

The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told a media briefing that "most countries will see this as a bold step to secure a two-state solution, allowing time for negotiations".

Hours after the deal was announced, the Emirati flag was projected onto Tel Aviv's town hall.

Aaron David Miller, a veteran US negotiator on the Middle East peace process and analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the deal a "win for all".

"(The) UAE says it's prevented annexation; US prevents annexation too and gets big breakthrough and Netanyahu gets enormous win and off hook from the annexation trap," he tweeted.

Pope Francis and other religious leaders at the Vatican. Photograph: AP

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Lebanon president hedges over eventual peace with Israel in interview - New

"The End of History" – Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Muhammad, Jesus, God, Jews, Arabs, EU, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Africa, South America, Global Unity,..... etc.) (Text version)

" ..... Abraham, Father of the Jews

I want to honor Abraham [Abram], born in Ur, which is now part of modern Iraq, and I want to honor his sons, not all born of Sara. The one I wish to speak of is Ishmael. Abraham is Jewish... the great Jewish prophet. Ishmael is his son. There's no way that you could say Ishmael was not Jewish, and he is even to this day. Ishmael was born in Hebron. So in addition, he is very Israeli. Ishmael is a Jew.

Now some would argue, due to how the Jewish lineage is computed by men [mother's side]. But Spirit looks at the DNA and the Akashic lineage, so spiritually, Ishmael is a Jew. He came in to be part of the lineage of the Jews.

He fell from favor even with the Jewish people early on for political reasons. Then Ishmael went on to become that which is the ancestor of all Arabs... the father of Arabia. Therefore, you could say that the Arabs are with Jewish blood, that of Abraham flowing through them. But early on, the Jews cast Ishmael out. So although you have the one God and monotheism, and you have the principle of the love of God and the unity of God, there was a split. The truth was mixed with untruths and, even to this day, there would be a billion Human Beings who would say it was Ishmael and not Isaac who was almost sacrificed at the Temple Mount. They would also say that he is not a Jew.

So what is the truth here? Human Beings were not built to unify. In an older energy on the planet from those days, and even the days that you were born in, the energy laid upon you is for you to separate, not unify. And that is why we call it the old energy. Oh, they were wise men and women who knew better, but it is the old energy that separates and divides, and it is the old energy that has created the divisions of hatred within millions of those who are actually "all Jews."

Muhammad's Beautiful Message of Unity

Let me tell you about Muhammad, the prophet. Muhammad is of the lineage of Ishmael, who is of the lineage of Abraham. Therefore, Muhammad had Jewish blood, so that was his lineage but not necessarily his culture. But his Akashic lineage was from Abraham. [Abraham is the founder of Islam, according to the Quran.]

Muhammad had a beautiful meeting, more than one, with an angelic presence. The angels talked to humanity back then in basic 3D ways. But how many of you have put together that most of the angels in that time who spoke to Human Beings talked to those of Jewish lineage? Like Muhammad, like Moses, like Jesus, like Abraham. For this was part of a set-up of history, part of what makes the Jewish lineage important to the core Akash of humanity, and we have spoken before, "As go the Jews, go Earth." Indeed, there is something there to look at which is important, and it is going to change soon. For in our eyes, the "Jews" are all those in the Middle East.

Muhammad's information from the angel was this: "Unify the Arabs and give them the God of Israel." And he did! The information he had was beautiful and was written down later for his followers. It was all about the incredible love of God and the unity of man. Muhammad the prophet was a unifier, not a separatist.

Long before Muhammad, there came Jesus - Jesus the Jew. He became responsible for what you would call Christianity today. All of his disciples were Jewish. The Rock, Peter the fisherman, who started the Christian church, was Jewish. And we tell you these things to remind you that there's a unity here. Perhaps there is a reason, dear ones, why the 12 layers of DNA have Hebrew names? Indeed, it's in honor of the masters and the lineage, including that of Muhammad, of Ishmael, of Isaac, of Abraham and of Jesus. All of them, part of the original spiritual language [Hebrew].

"Oh," you might say, "there was Sumerian and before that there was Lemurian. There was Sanskrit and Tamil, and many other older languages." Correct, but we're speaking of a language of today - one that you can relate to, that has power, and that is spoken today by the pure lineage of the masters who walked the planet.

So what did humanity do with all this? What did they do with all this sacred information from these Jewish masters? They went to war, because Humans separate things. They don't put them together. So here we are with one beautiful God, creator of all there is, and millions who believe that very thing, yet they are going to war with each other over ideology about what God said, which prophet was best, and which group is in God's favor. That's ancient history, thousands of years old. But it shows exactly what the old energy is all about. ..."

North Korea says no need for talks with US

Asiatimes – AFP, July 4, 2020

Dialogue nothing more than a tool for US grappling with political crisis, North's vice foreign minister says

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said 'the US is mistaken
if it thinks things like negotiations would still work on us'. Photo: AFP

North Korea does “not feel any need” to resume talks with Washington, a senior diplomat for the country said Saturday, days after Seoul called for a summit as it seeks improved ties with Pyongyang.

The statement by the North’s vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui came after former US national security advisor John Bolton on Thursday reportedly said President Donald Trump might pursue another meeting with leader Kim Jong Un in October.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in – who has long backed engagement with the North – on Tuesday also called for another meeting between Kim and Trump, saying the South would be making “utmost efforts” to make it happen.

But Pyongyang does “not feel any need to sit face to face with the US”, Choe said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

“Dreamers” had been raising hopes of an “October surprise”, she added.

“The US is mistaken if it thinks things like negotiations would still work on us,” Choe said.

Washington “does not consider the DPRK-US dialogue as nothing more than a tool for grappling (with) its political crisis”, Choe added, using the North’s official name.

Bolton had reportedly said Trump would meet with Kim if it would help his re-election chances.

The North has “already worked out a detailed strategic timetable” to deal with the “long-term threat” from Washington, Choe said.

Talks over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal have been stalled since a Hanoi summit between Trump and Kim collapsed in early 2019 over what the North would be willing to give up in exchange for sanctions relief.

Recent reports have said US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun is due to visit Seoul next week to discuss talks with North Korea, although the South’s foreign ministry has not confirmed the trip.

Last month Pyongyang issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over anti-North leaflets that defectors send back across the militarised border – usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles.

It also upped the pressure by blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office and threatening military measures against Seoul but last week said it had suspended those plans in an apparent sudden dialling down of tensions.

Choe’s statement comes a day after Seoul’s presidential Blue House appointed as its new spy chief a former lawmaker who played a crucial role in organising the first inter-Korean summit back in 2000.

The move is widely seen as a sign of Moon’s determination to maintain pro-engagement policies despite the North’s abandonment of its nuclear and missile test moratoriums.

Trump hails 'exceptional' Modi at huge India rally

Yahoo – AFP, Bhuvan BAGGA, Jérôme CARTILLIER, February 24, 2020

Trump heaped praise on Modi as "a great champion of India" in front of around
100,000 people at the world's biggest cricket stadium (AFP Photo/Money SHARMA)

US President Donald Trump got a rapturous and romantic welcome to India on Monday, addressing a huge rally and holding hands with his wife at the Taj Mahal, in a maiden official visit big on photo opportunities but short on concrete results.

Casting a cloud over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's welcome, however, a policeman and at least three civilians were killed in clashes in New Delhi over a contentious citizenship law hours before the US president was due in the Indian capital.

At the world's biggest cricket stadium in Modi's home state of Gujarat in western India, Trump heaped praise on the Indian right-winger as an "exceptional leader, a great champion of India", before a crowd of around 100,000.

"America loves India. America respects India, and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people," Trump told the ecstatic crowd, many in Trump-emblazoned baseball caps.

Trump namechecked Bollywood films and Indian sports stars in his speech (AFP Photo/

Money SHARMA

Name-checking Bollywood films and Indian cricketers, Trump -- with an eye on elections in November -- paid tribute to the four-million-strong Indian-American diaspora as "truly special people".

"President Trump's visit opens a new chapter in our relationship -- a chapter that will document the progress and prosperity of the people of America and India," Modi said.

"The whole world knows what President Trump has done to fulfil the dreams of America."

Excited spectators had queued from 4:00 am for the "Namaste Trump" rally, reciprocating a "Howdy Modi" event in Houston last year where Trump likened Modi to Elvis.

'Tariff king'

Workers rushed to finish the stadium and erect a wall along the route that locals said was to hide a slum. Stray dogs, cows and monkeys were also kept away.

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump pose at India's Taj Mahal, 

a marble monument that UNESCO calls a "jewel of Muslim art" (AFP Photo/Mandel NGAN)

"Events like these will galvanise people to start to cooperate in new initiatives," said Pramit Maakoday, an Indian-American in the stadium.

Before the speech, Trump and First Lady Melania visited independence hero Mahatma Gandhi's ashram, where Modi gave him a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" three wise monkeys statue.

Later Trump and Melania -- in an off-white jump suit and sash alongside her husband in a buttercup-yellow tie -- flew to the Taj Mahal for a pre-sunset tour.

Then they headed to Delhi ahead of the main talks on Tuesday.

Parts of the Taj Mahal, the marble monument to love that UNESCO calls a "jewel of Muslim art", were given a mud-pack facial to remove stains, while efforts were made to lessen the stench of the adjacent river.

Activists in Kolkata from the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) shout slogans 

and hold a cutout of US President Donald Trump to protest his visit to the country (AFP

Photo/Dibyangshu SARKAR)

Behind the platitudes and blossoming bromance between the two leaders lies a fraught relationship as Trump's "America First" drive collides with Modi's "Make in India" mantra.

Trump has imposed tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium and suspended duty-free access for certain goods, prompting India to raise duties on US produce such as almonds.

The US leader has called India the "tariff king", and said before his visit that Asia's third-largest economy had been "hitting us very, very hard for many, many years".

Rather than a wide-ranging trade deal, reports said Trump and Modi may instead sign smaller agreements covering products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles and US dairy products.

"We are in the early stages of discussions for an incredible trade agreement," Trump told the rally, calling Modi a "very tough negotiator".

An Indian idli, savoury rice cake, decorated in the image of US President Donald 

Trump, gets the final touch beside a cake with the image of Indian Prime Minister 

Narendra Modi -- honoring Trump's first official visit to the world's biggest democracy 

(AFP Photo/Arun SANKAR)

"I am in no rush," he told reporters later.

US pressure

With the US and India sharing concerns about China, the two men were expected to sign a number of defence deals during the visit, and to discuss the supply of six nuclear reactors.

Russia, however, remains India's biggest supplier in arms, with India having agreed to buy Moscow's $5.4-billion S-400 missile defence system despite the threat of US sanctions.

The US has pressured India to stop buying Iranian oil, while US businesses have raised concerns over New Delhi's plans to force foreign firms to store Indian consumers' personal data inside the country.

India has bristled at Trump's offer to mediate in the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan which a year ago again brought the two nuclear-armed neighbours close to war.

Workers rushed to finish the cricket stadium and erect a wall along the route that 

locals said was to hide a slum (AFP Photo/Money SHARMA)

In Washington, India has faced criticism over its clampdown in restive Kashmir, and the recently passed citizenship law that has led to protests across the nation, including in New Delhi on Monday.

A senior US administration official told reporters Trump would raise concerns about religious freedom in the Hindu-majority nation during the trip, "which is extremely important to this administration".

Trump ridiculed Modi last year for "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan".

"That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said.

Trump warns Kim has 'everything' to lose through hostility

Yahoo – AFP, December 8, 2019

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump cross south of the
Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea, after Trump briefly
stepped over to the northern side, on June 30, 2019 (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

President Donald Trump warned Sunday that North Korea's Kim Jong Un had "everything" to lose through hostility towards the United States, after Pyongyang said it had carried out a major new weapons test.

"Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way," Trump tweeted in response to the unspecified test at the Sohae space launch center.

The announcement of Saturday's test came just hours after Trump said he would be "surprised" by any hostile action from the North, emphasizing his "very good relationship" with Kim.

Trump and Kim engaged in months of mutual insults and threats of devastation in 2017, sending tensions soaring before a diplomatic rapprochement the following year.

The pair have met three times since June 2018 but with little progress towards denuclearization. Pyongyang has set Washington a December 31 deadline to make new concessions to kickstart stalled talks.

"North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised," Trump tweeted. "NATO, China, Russia, Japan, and the entire world is unified on this issue!"

Writing that Kim had "signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement" at their June 2018 summit in Singapore," Trump warned: "He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November."

A spokesman for North Korea's Academy of the National Defense Science said Saturday's "very important test" would have an "important effect" on changing the "strategic position" of North Korea, in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The statement did not provide further details on the test.

A senior US administration official earlier said Washington had seen reports of a test and was "coordinating closely with allies and partners."

Trump indicated that military action was still possible when he was asked about Pyongyang on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Britain this week.

North Korea fired back that if the United States used military force it would take "prompt corresponding actions at any level."

UN diplomats fear that North Korea will resume long-range nuclear or ballistic tests if no progress is made soon in talks with the United States.

Sohae, on North Korea's northwest coast, is ostensibly a facility designed for putting satellites into orbit.

But Pyongyang has carried out several rocket launches there that were condemned by the US and others as disguised long-range ballistic missile tests.

Following the Singapore summit, Trump said Kim had agreed to destroy "a major missile engine testing site" without naming the facility.

Kim then agreed to shutter the Sohae site during a summit last year with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang as part of trust-building measures.

North Korea says to hold nuclear talks with US on Saturday

Yahoo – AFP, Kang Jin-kyu, October 1, 2019

Negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have been gridlocked since a
second summit between North Korea's Kim Jong Un and President Donald
Trump in February ended without a deal (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Seoul (AFP) - North Korea and the United States will hold working-level nuclear talks on Saturday, Pyongyang said, signalling the resumption of dialogue that has been effectively stalled since the collapse of a summit in February.

The two sides agreed to have "preliminary contact" on October 4 and hold negotiations the following day, the North's vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

"It is my expectation that the working-level negotiations would accelerate the positive development of the DPRK-US relations," she added without disclosing a venue.

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus later confirmed the talks, which she said would happen "within the next week".

Negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have been gridlocked since a second summit between North Korea's Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in February ended without a deal.

The two agreed to restart dialogue during an impromptu meeting at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas in June, but the North's anger at a US refusal to cancel joint military deals with South Korea put the process on hold.

Relations thawed last month after Trump fired his hawkish national security advisor John Bolton, who Pyongyang had repeatedly denounced as a warmonger.

North Korea's chief negotiator also responded positively to Trump's suggestion that the two sides try a "new method" of approaching their discussions.

Trump had criticised Bolton's suggestion of the "Libyan model" for North Korea, a reference to a denuclearisation deal with the African nation's former dictator Moamer Kadhafi -- who was killed after being deposed in 2011.

Pyongyang had bristled at that comment, which Trump said "set us back very badly".

Consensus reached?

Despite the gridlock, Pyongyang has continued to praise Trump, calling him "bold" and "wise".

Analysts say Bolton's dismissal from the White House could have helped Pyongyang's decision to return to the table.

South Korea's presidential Blue House welcomed Tuesday's announcement.

"We hope to see the realisation of practical steps towards permanent peace regime and complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through the upcoming talks," said spokeswoman Ko Min-jung.

The announcement on the new talks could be an "indication" that the two sides have narrowed their differences behind the scenes, said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.

"The North has demanded security guarantees in return for denuclearisation measures and called on the US to come up with 'new calculation', he said.

"Consensus between the two might have been reached regarding the matter in the lead-up to the Tuesday announcement," he added.

Trump sides with Kim criticism of US-SKorea war games

Yahoo – AFP, 9 August 2019

US President Donald Trump said he had received a 'very beautiful' letter
from North Korea's Kim Jong Un

US President Donald Trump told reporters Friday he agreed with Kim Jong Un's opposition to US-South Korea war games, after receiving what he was a new letter from the North Korean leader.

"I got a very beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un yesterday," Trump said. "It was a very positive letter."

"He wasn't happy with the war games," Trump added, referring to new military exercises between US forces and the South Korean military that began this week.

"As you know, I've never liked it either. I've never been a fan. And you know why? I don't like paying for it," the US leader said.

Trump received Kim's three-page letter on Thursday after Pyongyang undertook four missile tests in the past two weeks that it said were a response to the joint exercises between the South and the United States.

While the weapons fired were not the medium- and long-range ballistic missiles that have posed an implicit threat to Japan and the United States, they were seen to be a new type of extremely fast, short-range guided ballistic missile that could pose a potent danger to South Korea.

On Tuesday North Korea threatened more weapons tests, and said the US-South Korea war games were "an undisguised denial and a flagrant violation" of the diplomatic process between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul.

Trump continued to play down the missile tests and said he could have a third summit with Kim in the future.

"I think we'll have another meeting," he said.

"In the meantime I'll say it again. There have been no nuclear tests. The missile tests have all been short-range. No ballistic missile tests, no long-range missiles," he said.

NKorea's Kim won't 'disappoint me,' despite missile tests: Trump

Yahoo – AFP, August 2, 2019

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) and US President Donald Trump shake hands
during their meeting in the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea
on June 30, 2019 (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump on Friday underlined his intense personal support for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, even if he admitted that Pyongyang's recent missile tests "may" violate a UN resolution.

"There may be a United Nations violation, but Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust, there is far too much for North Korea to gain," Trump said in a series of tweets on the subject.

"Chariman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true," Trump added, misspelling the North Korean dictator's official title.

Nuclear-armed North Korea is barred from ballistic missile tests under UN resolutions, and its recent repeated testing of short-range missiles have been condemned by European members of the UN Security Council.

Trump, however, has dismissed the tests as "standard."

The US president has invested a huge amount of political capital in his attempt to persuade Kim to end his country's isolation and give up its nuclear arsenal.

However, despite three massively publicized face-to-face meetings and numerous exchanges of letters, Trump has modest gains to show for his diplomacy.

In Trump's latest tweets, he has again suggested that his personal touch will be enough to persuade Kim to reverse the regime's years-long push for military nuclear power.

"He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!" the US president said.

North Korea hails 'historic' Kim-Trump summit

Yahoo – AFP, Sunghee Hwang, July 1, 2019

Kim and Trump shook hands over the concrete blocks dividing North and South
before Trump became the first US president ever to set foot on North Korean soil
(AFP Photo/KCNA VIA KNS)

North Korea on Monday hailed the weekend meeting between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in the Demilitarized Zone as "historic", as analysts said Pyongyang was looking to shape the narrative to its own agenda.

The two leaders agreed to "resume and push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula", the official Korean Central News Agency said.

After a Twitter invitation by the US president on Saturday, the two men met a day later in the strip of land that has divided the peninsula for 66 years since the end of the Korean War, when the two countries and their allies fought each other to a standstill.

Kim and Trump shook hands over the concrete slabs dividing North and South before Trump walked a few paces into Pyongyang's territory -- the first US president ever to set foot on North Korean soil.

"The top leaders of the DPRK and the US exchanging historic handshakes at Panmunjom" was an "amazing event", KCNA said, describing the truce village as a "place that had been known as the symbol of division" and referring to past "inglorious relations" between the countries.

US President Donald Trump walks to the line of demarcation to meet North 

Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

The impromptu meeting in the DMZ -- where the US president said they agreed to resume working-level talks within weeks on the North's nuclear programme -- was full of symbolism.

Trump's border-crossing -- which he said was uncertain until the last moment -- was an extraordinary sequel to the scene at Kim's first summit with Moon Jae-in last year, when the young leader invited the South Korean president to walk over the Military Demarcation Line, as the border is officially known.

"It was an honour that you asked me to step over that line, and I was proud to step over the line," Trump told Kim.

Pictures from the meeting -- including a sequence of images from the two men emerging from opposite sides for a handshake and a skip across the border -- were splashed across the front page of the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which carried 35 images in total.

Shin Beom-chul, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said the KCNA report was "typical North Korean propaganda that glorified Kim as leading the tremendous changes in geopolitics".

After a Twitter invitation by the US president, the two leaders -- pictured on North 

Korean soil in the DMZ -- met a day later in the strip of land that has divided the 

peninsula for 66 years since the end of the Korean War (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

'Mysterious force'

Analysts have been divided by Sunday's events, some saying they spurred new momentum into deadlocked nuclear talks, while others described them as "reality show theatrics".

The first Trump-Kim summit took place in a blaze of publicity in Singapore last year but produced only a vaguely worded pledge about denuclearisation.

A second meeting in Vietnam in February collapsed after the pair failed to reach an agreement over sanctions relief and what the North was willing to give in return.

Contact between the two sides has since been minimal -- with Pyongyang issuing frequent criticisms of the US position -- but the two leaders exchanged a series of letters before Trump issued his offer to meet at the DMZ.

Regional powerhouse China on Monday said renewed discussions between North Korea and the United States are of "great significance".

History of relations between the United States and North Korea since 1945 (AFP Photo)

"It is hoped that all parties concerned will seize the opportunity, move in the same direction, actively explore effective solutions to each other's concerns and make progress on the peninsula," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing.

Trump's historic gesture came over a week after Xi Jinping made the first visit to Pyongyang by a Chinese president in 14 years -- a trip which analysts had said Xi may use as leverage in his own trade talks with Trump that concluded with a truce at the G20.

As well as the working-level talks, Trump also floated the idea of sanctions relief -- repeatedly demanded by Pyongyang -- and said he invited the North Korean leader to the White House.

Such a trip would have to come "at the right time", he added.

KCNA was less specific, saying Kim and Trump discussed "issues of mutual concern and interest which become a stumbling block".

Trump regularly calls Kim a "friend" and KCNA cited the North Korean leader as lauding their "good personal relations", saying they would "produce good results unpredictable by others and work as a mysterious force overcoming manifold difficulties and obstacles".

Vipin Narang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the North was portraying Kim as "being courted by Trump".