The chronology of the reunion

The reunion scheduled today between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is taking place in Singapore due to the relative neutrality and the security this city-state provides. Singapore is one of the few countries that still hosts a North-Korean embassy, and many of the deals of the Kim regime were conducted here, according to the foreign press.

In Singapore, which has a strong relationship with the US, public gatherings without prior police approval are forbidden, which limits the possible protests against Kim or Trump.

The reunion, which was announced for the first time by the White House on March 8th, 2018, comes after about two weeks ago, Trump had cancelled the summit, because, he said then, "it was inappropriate at that moment".

The American official explained that he made the decision to cancel the reunion "amid the extraordinary anger and open hostility" of the statements of the North Korean regime.

He threatened, on May 24th, prior to the announcement made by Trump, that he would cancel the planned summit due to military exercises conducted in common by the United States and South Korea.

One day after announcing the meeting was cancelled, Trump changed his mind, in response to a message by Kim, who said that he was still willing to meet with the American leader and to discuss the denuclearization "at any time".

On May 30, North-Korean general Kim Yong-chol traveled to New York, where he met state secretary American Secretary of StaMike Pompeo. The negotiations between the two continued on the next day as well, and subsequently Pompeo announced that the parties made remarkable progress.

On June 1st, Trump announced that the summit would be held according to the initial schedule, June 12.

On that period, there have been doubts about the meeting between the two, especially as Trump's lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York, said that after Trump decided to cancel the summit, "Kim came back crawling on all four and begged" the rescheduling of the meeting.

Singapore made thorough preparations for hosting the summit, according to prime-minister Lee Hsien Loong, the event will cost 20 million Singapore dollars (15 million US dollars), of which half for the security measures, Wikipedia writes.

In 1945, Korea was divided, and Korean war of 1950-1953 ended in a truce, not a peace deal. What followed was an ongoing, sporadic conflict, and American troops have stayed in the South.

Starting with the 1990s, international concern arose over the nuclear arming program of North Korea. In 2002, American president George W. Bush declared North Korea as part of the "Axis of Evil" and decided to place sanctions upon Phenian.

The escalation of the North Korean nuclear program came in particular under the presidency of Kim Jong-un, who became a leader in December 2011, after his father died.

The American administration led by Barack Obama had a policy of "strategic patience" towards the negotiations with the North of the peninsula, and Donald Trump, who was elected as president of the US in 2016, expressed his opposition to this open policy of his predecessor. But even though he was talking harsh with the North-Korean regime, Trump is open to dialogue.

We remind that in April 2018 the inter-Korean summit was held, when Northern leader Kim Jong-un, and Southern, Moon Jae-in, met on the militarized border between the two countries. Kim Jong-un was the first Korean leader to cross that separation line.