North Korea said Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump will discuss “denuclearization” and “durable peace” on the Korean peninsula during their upcoming summit, CNN reports said.
Kim and President Trump arrived in Singapore on Sunday ahead of Tuesday’s historic summit. It will be the first ever meeting between a sitting US President and North Korean leader.
“Wide-ranging and profound views on the issue of establishing new DPRK-US relations, the issue of building a permanent and durable peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, the issue of actualising the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual concern” will be discussed, the report said.
During a sendoff ceremony at Pyongyang International Airport, Kim boarded a Chinese plane provided for his personal use after greeting senior officials who came to bid him farewell.
“Kim Jong Un is accompanied by Kim Yong Chol and Ri Su Yong, members of the Political Bureau and vice-chairmen of the Central Committee of the WPK, Ri Yong Ho, member of the Political Bureau of the C.C., WPK and foreign minister, No Kwang Chol, alternate member of the Political Bureau of the C.C., WPK and minister of the People’s Armed Forces, Kim Yo Jong, alternate member of the Political Bureau and first vice department director of the C.C., WPK, Choe Son Hui, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, and members of the C.C., WPK and the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK,” KCNA reported.
While President Trump has spoken positively about the upcoming summit, he has been vague on details of what they might be able to actually achieve.
“I feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people,” Trump said at a press conference in Canada before departing the G-7 summit for Singapore. “And he has that opportunity, and he won’t have that opportunity again,”
- Fire breaks out at Baghdad warehouse storing ballot boxes for Iraq’s election recount
A Baghdad warehouse being used to store ballot boxes for Iraq’s contested parliamentary election caught fire on Sunday, ahead of a nationwide recount effort.
The fire started hours after a number of judges were officially tasked with carrying out the manual process of recounting the votes from May’s election.
Iraq’s civil defense force was able to contain the fire and stop it from spreading to the main warehouse housing the majority of the ballots, according to reports.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, the extent of the damage, or whether it would affect the planned recount.
Earlier on Sunday, the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council named the judges who will take over the independent electoral commission to carry out the manual recount of last month’s elections as per the parliament’s recommendation, according to a statement.
- France, Germany slam Trump’s G7 statement U-turn
France and Germany have criticized President Donald Trump for threatening to pull the United States out of a joint statement with key G7 allies.
Trump tweeted Saturday that he had instructed his representatives not to sign a communique among the seven nations that make up the group just after host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced all countries had agreed to it.
Key to Trump’s concerns appeared to be declarations on trade, a thorny issue following Trump’s announcement that he planned to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum exports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.
France’s Elysee Palace said Sunday that the country and Europe as a whole maintained their support for the communique.
“International cooperation can’t depend on anger and small words. Let’s be serious and worthy of our people. We spent two days obtaining a draft and commitments. We stick to it. And anyone who leaves and turns their back on them shows their inconsistency,” the palace said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday called on European nations to stick together following Trump’s announcement.
“It’s actually not a real surprise. We have seen this with the climate agreement or the Iran deal. In a matter of seconds, you can destroy trust with 280 Twitter characters. To build that up again will take much longer,” he told reporters in Berlin.
He called on G7 members to “keep a cool head” and consider consequences.
- Italy ‘to shut ports’ to boat carrying over 600 refugees
Italy’s new populist government says it will refuse to let a humanitarian boat carrying more than 600 refugees and migrants dock at any of its ports and has asked the tiny Mediterranean country of Malta to open its doors to the vessel, according to media reports.
Malta said it had nothing to do with the rescue operation, opening the prospect of a diplomatic standoff between the two European Union allies.
“From now also Italy begins to say NO to the traffic of human beings, NO to the business of illegal immigration,” Matteo Salvini, Italian interior minister and head of the far-right League party, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“My goal is to guarantee a peaceful life for these children in Africa and for our children in Italy,” added Salvini, who is also a deputy prime minister after campaigning on a staunchly anti-immigrant platform, vowing to “put Italians first” and send hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants “home.”
More than 600,000 people have reached Italy by boat from Africa in the past five years.
Numbers have dropped dramatically in recent months, but there has been a rise in rescues in recent days, presenting Salvini with his first test as minister.
Earlier on Sunday, the charity SOS Mediterranee on Twitter that its rescue ship, The Aquarius, had taken on board 629 refugees and migrants, including 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 other children and seven pregnant women.
The charity said the group of mainly sub-Saharan Africans were picked up in six different rescue operations off the coast of Libya and included hundreds who were plucked from the sea by Italian naval units and then transferred to The Aquarius.
“The boat is now heading north towards a secure port,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted on Sunday without specifying its destination, though virtually every such boat over the past five years has ended up in Italy.
Its route north will take it past Malta, and an official said that Salvini had written to the government of the small island state asking it to let The Aquarius dock there.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said that Italy would not open its ports to the NGO’s vessel, according to the Reuters news agency.
Italian media also reported the same letter.
- Syrian forces launch deadly air raids in Idlib
At least 16 people have been killed and 18 others wounded in Syrian government air strikes on villages in rebel-held Idlib province, reports quoting Syria’s Civil Defence have said.
According to the group, which operates in Syria’s rebel-held areas and is also known as the White Helmets, a young girl was among the victims in Sunday’s air raids.
A number of buildings and facilities in the villages of Binnish, Ram Hamdan and Taftanaz, which are controlled by rebel coalition forces, were also damaged.
“The shelling lasted for about two hours,” 34-year-old Mohammed Abu al-Amin, an activist based in Taftanaz, told Al Jazeera.
“Much of the town’s buildings were targeted, including the Al-Noor hospital and a family’s home, who are now among the dead,” he said.
The villages attacked in rural Idlib are located around the government-held towns of Foua and Kefraya.
The latest government attacks were launched hours after deadly clashes erupted between Syrian government forces and fighters from Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – previously known as al-Nusra Front), a former al-Qaeda affiliated group – in the villages of Foua and Kefraya that are home to some 10,000 Shia Muslims.