FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has invited President Trump to meet for negotiations over its nuclear program, an audacious diplomatic overture that would bring together two strong-willed, idiosyncratic leaders who have traded threats of war.
The White House said that Mr. Trump had accepted the invitation, and Chung Eui-yong, a South Korean official who conveyed it, told reporters that the president would meet with Mr. Kim within two months… Mr. Chung, whose talks with Mr. Kim on Monday in Pyongyang resulted in the invitation, noted that the North Korean leader said he understood that joint military exercises with the United States and South Korea would go ahead as scheduled after the end of the Paralympic Games this month…
Meeting Mr. Kim now, rather than at the end of a negotiation when the United States would presumably have extracted concessions from North Korea, is an enormous gesture by the president. But Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim share a penchant for bold, dramatic moves, and their personal participation in a negotiation could take it in unexpected directions.
The announcement itself was delivered in an improvisational style that belied its historic significance. Mr. Trump himself teased the news, popping into the White House briefing room shortly after 5 p.m. to tell reporters that South Korea would make a major announcement at 7.”
-Mark Landler, “North Korea Asks for Direct Nuclear Talks, and Trump Agrees,” The New York Times online, Mar. 8, 2018