Will Sweden host Trump-Kim summit? North Korean official visits country for talks
North Korea’s foreign minister has travelled to Sweden for talks, giving rise to speculation that the Scandinavian country could play host to the unprecedented summit between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, has frequently been used as a communication channel between the US and North Korea. It has been cited along with Geneva, and the Demilitarised Zone on the North and South Korean border as a possible location for the historic meeting.
But Ri Yong-ho’s two-day trip and meeting with his Swedish counterpart, Margot Wallstrom, has also generated reports of negotiations on the possible release of three Americans detained in North Korea – Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song.
Sweden was the first Western European nation to establish diplomatic relations with the North in 1973, and its embassy performs consular services for the US, Australia and Canada, who have no representation there.
Last year it played a crucial role in the release of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim and US student Otto Warmbier, who had entered a coma and died shortly after returning to his family.
Mr Ri’s visit to Stockholm, accompanied by Choe Kang-il, a senior official in charge of American affairs, has been the first sign of diplomatic movement on the North Korean side since President Trump stunned the world last week by immediately agreeing to Kim Jong-un’s invitation to meet.
In Washington, the state department insisted on Thursday that it was pushing ahead with preparations for the summit, the first ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, despite the regime’s ongoing silence on Mr Trump’s offer.
Asked if the US had received a direct message from the North, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: “Not that I am aware of. I do not believe that to be the case,” reported Yonhap.
Seoul, which has been driving the progress towards talks, is also in the throes of preparation. This week it dispatched Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to Washington for three days to shore up support among congressional leaders.
Ms Kang briefed senior legislators on the recent trip to Pyongyang by South Korean envoys, which led to the diplomatic breakthrough of Kim Jong-un agreeing to talk to both South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and the US.
She is also scheduled to meet deputy secretary of state John Sullivan to thrash out details for the planned summits.
Back in Seoul, President Moon has launched a committee, headed by his chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, to lay the ground for his own one-on-one meeting with Mr Kim at the end of April.
On Friday, a presidential official told reporters that Mr Moon’s summit with Mr Kim would likely be a one-day affair.
The summit, only the third between the leaders of the North and South since the Korean war of the early 1950s, will be held in the tense border village of Panmunjom, which has few facilities.
But despite the Washington’s united diplomatic front with Seoul in dealing with Pyongyang, tensions remain between the two allies over trade after the US president last year threatened to scrap their bilateral trade pact.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to hint at withdrawing US troops stationed in South Korea if Seoul failed to address its trade deficit with Washington.
“We have a very big trade with them, and we protect them,” Mr Trump said in an audio recording obtained by the Washington Post.
“We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”
But Admiral Harry Harris, the chief of the US Pacific Command, later cautioned that pulling troops out would be counterproductive.
“I believe he [Kim Jong-un] would do a victory dance,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I think he’d be a happy man if we abrogated our alliance with South Korea.”
