BEIJING: North Korea’s neighbours, US President Donald Trump and the United Nations welcomed Friday’s historic inter-Korean summit, while urging progress towards denuclearisation.

At the first summit between the Koreas in more than a decade, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, pledged to work for the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

The two sides said they would work with the United States and China to declare an official end to the 1950-1953 Korean War and seek an agreement to establish “permanent” and “solid” peace in place of an armistice. Trump welcomed the talks while injecting some caution.

“After a furious year of missile launches and Nuclear testing, a historic meeting between North and South Korea is now taking place. Good things are happening, but only time will tell!” he said on Twitter.

Trump, who traded personal insults and threats with Kim in the past year over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear-armed missiles capable of hitting the United States, said he looked forward to meeting the North Korean leader in coming weeks with the aim of completely denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

As Trump welcomed German Chan­cellor Angela Merkel to the Oval Of­fice, he sounded a more cautious tone.

“We’re not going to be played, okay? We’re going to hopefully make a deal,” he told reporters. “And if we don’t, we leave the room.” On Thursday, Trump had said five locations were in consideration for his meeting with Kim, and three or four dates. He has previously said the talks could take place by early June.

On Friday, he narrowed down the possible sites to “two or three,” without specifying where they were.

China, which is North Korea’s main ally and is wary of being sidelined amid the thaw between the rival Koreas and the upcoming summit between Trump and Kim, said it was willing to continue playing a role in resolving the decades-long standoff between the rival Koreas over the North’s nuclear and missile programmes.

Kim made a dramatic surprise visit last month to Beijing, where he met with Xi.

China “hopes all relevant sides can maintain the momentum for dialogue and work together to promote the denuclearisation of the peninsula and the process for the political settlement of the peninsula issue,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“China is willing to continue playing a proactive role in this regard,” it added.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he “strongly” hoped Pyongyang would take concrete steps to carry out its promises to pursue denuclearisation. “I will keep a close watch on North Korea’s future conduct,” Abe told reporters.

Asked if he was concerned that Japan might be left out of the denuclearisation process, Abe said, “Absolutely not. I talked with President Trump for more than 11 hours just a while ago and reached a complete agreement on our action, effort and basic policy.” In Moscow, the Kremlin called the summit very positive news and said President Vladimir Putin had long advocated direct talks between the two countries.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2018