JAPAN/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday [6-7-18] held out the prospect of inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the White House if he deemed next week’s summit a success while also signaling he was willing to walk away if he thought talks did not go well. At a White House news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump also repeated what he said last week that it was possible he and Kim could sign an agreement to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which was concluded only with a truce, not a peace treaty. Trump added that he hoped someday U.S. relations with Kim’s secretive Pyongyang government could be normalized. The main issue for the June 12 summit in Singapore is the U.S. demand for North Korea to abandon a nuclear weapons program that now threatens the United States. North Korea has rejected giving up its arsenal unilaterally and defends its nuclear and missile programs as a deterrent against what it sees as U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday reemphasized Washington’s stance going into the talks.”
-James Oliphant, “Trump dangles prospect of North Korean leader visit if summit successful,” Reuters, June 7, 2018 9:45 am