ROK ambassador to US expects 2nd US-DPRK summit

WASHINGTON - Cho Yoon-je. Republic of Korea's ambassador to the United States, said Wednesday that he expected the second summit between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to take place.

In his speech at a Washington-based think tank, Cho said that both US President Donald Trump and the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong-un want a second meeting to deal with the denuclearization issue.

"The train is on the move, and no one wants to jump off the train," Cho said in the speech.

At the same time, Cho noted that achieving complete denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula, which is the shared goal of related parties, would be "a long journey (that) may take years to get to the final destination."

In a New Year speech on Jan 1, Kim said that he would push forward the denuclearization and was ready to meet with Trump at any time. Trump responded one day later that he expected his second encounter with Kim in the "not-too-distant future."

Trump also revealed on Jan 6 that negotiations were underway on the location to meet with Kim and the two leaders had spoken "indirectly."

However, the list of possible locations has not yet been presented to Pyongyang, US media reported earlier this week, citing a source familiar with the planning process.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said earlier this month that China always believes that more positive interactions and productive dialogues between the United States and the DPRK will contribute to the settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue as well as peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.

The relations between the United States and the DPRK improved last year. Trump and Kim had their first summit in Singapore in June. However, differences between the two sides remain over key issues including the scale of denuclearization, US sanctions and whether to issue a war-ending declaration.