The bumpy road taken to the Singapore meeting

The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Democratic People's Republic of Korea top leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday started a diplomatic process to try to resolve a standoff over the Korean Peninsula issue. Here is a look back at how the road to the summit unfolded.

·Jan 1: Kim calls for improved relations with the Republic of Korea, but adds that he has a nuclear button on his desk. Trump says he has a bigger and more powerful nuclear button, adding "and my Button works!".

·Jan 9: DPRK and ROK officials meet at the border village of Panmunjom and agree on the DPRK sending athletes and delegates to the Winter Olympics in the ROK. Hundreds of DPRK athletes and officials go to the Pyeongchang Games in February, including Kim's sister.

·March 7: The ROK's presidential national security director visits Kim in Pyongyang and reports that Kim is willing to discuss his nuclear arsenal with the United States.

·March 9: ROK envoys meet Trump in Washington and deliver an invitation from Kim to meet, and Trump accepts.

·March 27: Kim makes surprise trip to Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping.

·April 18: Trump confirms that Mike Pompeo, then CIA chief, had met Kim secretly in the DPRK.

·April 21: The DPRK says it has suspended nuclear tests and plans to close its test site to focus on its economy.

·April 27: Kim meets with ROK President Moon Jae-in.

·May 7: Kim meets Xi again in China and calls for stronger strategic cooperation.

·May 9: Pompeo, now US secretary of state, visits Pyongyang again.

·May 10: Trump announces he will meet with Kim in Singapore on June 12.

·May 12: The DPRK says it will hold a ceremony to dismantle its nuclear test site.

·May 16: The DPRK abruptly calls off a high-level meeting with the ROK and threatens to cancel the summit with Trump in protest over US-ROK military exercises and US comments that the DPRK should follow the "Libya model" of denuclearization by eliminating everything upfront.

·May 22: Trump and Moon meet at the White House, and the ROK president says the "fate and the future of the Korean Peninsula hinge" on the meeting in Singapore.

·May 24: A senior DPRK diplomat calls US Vice-President Mike Pence a "political dummy" for his comments on Pyongyang. The DPRK dismantles its nuclear testing ground, but Trump announces that he's pulling out of the summit, citing the DPRK's "tremendous anger and open hostility".

·May 25: The DPRK says it is still willing to hold talks with the US "at any time, (in) any format". Moon calls Trump's move to cancel the summit "very perplexing".

·May 26: Kim and Moon meet in a border village of Panmunjom in a bid to revive the summit with Trump.

·May 30: Envoy Kim Yong-chol, the most senior DPRK official to visit the US in 18 years, arrives in New York for summit prep with Pompeo.

·June 1: After meeting Kim Yongchol at the White House, Trump says his meeting with Kim Jong-un is back on for June 12.

Associated Press

(China Daily 06/13/2018 page12)