US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s summit next week will take place at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa Island, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday (Jun 5).
“We thank our great Singaporean hosts for their hospitality,” Sanders wrote in a post on Twitter announcing the venue for the planned Jun 12 meeting.
Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event that plans for what will be the first meeting between a serving US president and a North Korean leader, were “moving along very well.”
“A lot of relationships being built, a lot of negotiations going on before the trip,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. But it's very important - it'll be a very important couple of days.”
Trump, who is seeking to persuade Kim to shut down a nuclear missile programme that now threatens the United States, said on Friday the summit he had cancelled the previous week was back on after he received the North Korean delegation bearing a letter from Kim.
Trump said last week he expected an eventual “very positive result” with North Korea but dampened expectations for a breakthrough in Singapore, saying it could take several meetings to reach an agreement.
Trump said one thing that could come out of the summit is an agreement formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which was concluded only with a truce, not a peace treaty.
Former US officials and analysts say that if the meeting produces a peace declaration, this could give Trump a big headline-grabbing, made-for-TV moment on the world stage.
But they say the public relations value of such a historic event could quickly fade if Trump fails, in return, to wring any significant concessions from Kim toward the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear arsenal.
North Korea defends its nuclear and missile programmes as a deterrent against what it sees as US aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War.
Sentosa and the linkway to the island from Harbourfront have earlier been designated by the Singapore government as a special event area for the upcoming summit for the two leaders.
This came in a public order published in the Government Gazette online on Tuesday (Jun 5), and adds to a previous announcement that the area around Shangri-La Hotel Singapore has been designated as a special event area for the summit.
It said extra security measures would be in force for these areas in the period between Jun 10 and 14.
According to a posting on the government gazette, weapons, flares, loud hailers, sound systems and banners will be banned in the special zone, with police allowed to conduct body searches on those entering the area.
Drones are also not allowed.
Set on 12 hectares of lush, manicured greenery, the Capella’s 112 rooms and villas were built in restored colonial buildings that once included an officers mess for the British army.
Designed by British architect Norman Foster, it has played host to A-listers like queen of pop Madonna and Lady Gaga when they stopped over in Singapore on tour.
Source: Channel News Asia