By Mercy Imali
South Korean President Moon Jae-in hailed the third ‘impromptu’ meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un as the result of an “astounding imagination” and thinking outside the box.
Moon praised both men’s actions. “That extraordinary proposal and bold response is the result of an astounding imagination that goes beyond common sense,” Moon said. “This is unthinkable in the existing diplomatic grammar.”
All three held an impromptu encounter in the Demilitarised Zone(DMZ) at the truce village of Panmunjom on Sunday. Trump is the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea. He agreed with Kim to resume working-level talks, since the collapse of their second summit in Hanoi in February.
Trump offered to meet Kim at the border to “say hello” via Twitter a day earlier. The North delivered an unusually fast response.
Contact between the two sides had been minimal in the last few months with Pyongyang issuing frequent criticisms of the US position — but the two leaders exchanged a series of letters before Trump issued his offer to meet at the Demilitarized Zone.
The dramatic DMZ meeting was full of symbolism, and while it did not produce a formal communique both sides said afterwards that they would continue working-level talks to restart the stalled nuclear negotiations.