South Korea’s Moon to meet Donald Trump in Washington

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will travel to the United States in two weeks for a summit with President Donald Trump on stalemated North Korean nuclear diplomacy.

Moon will hold a summit meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on April 11 to discuss North Korea and other alliance issues, the White House said on Friday.

“The alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea remains the linchpin of peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” it said in a statement.

It would be their first meeting since Trump's second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam last month. Their talks collapsed because of disputes on U.S.-led sanctions on the North, and North Korea recently threatened to quit the nuclear diplomacy.

Moon, a liberal who favors greater ties with North Korea and a negotiated solution to the nuclear crisis, shuttled between Washington and Pyongyang to facilitate nuclear diplomacy. The breakdown of the Hanoi summit subsequently put Moon in a difficult position on how to further engage North Korea and promote nuclear diplomacy.

The White House and Moon's office said that Moon and his wife would visit the United States on April 10-11.

The two leaders will discuss how to strengthen their countries' alliance and achieve North Korea's complete denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula, Yoon Do-han, a senior South Korean presidential official, said at a news conference.

Earlier this month, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said her country had no intention of compromising or continuing the nuclear talks unless the United States took steps commensurate with those the North had taken, such as its moratorium on missile launches and weapons tests, as well as changes its "political calculation." She said Kim would soon decide whether to continue the talks and the moratorium.

North Korea later withdrew its entire staff at a liaison office with South Korea before sending some of them back to the office at the North Korean border town of Kaesong. North Korea hasn't provided any reason for its action.However, the State and the Central government departments, public and private sector agencies to whom fire arms were issued for security, sportsmen who are part of the National Rifle Association and communities entitled to display weapons by longstanding law and custom, are exempted from the ban.