Anchor: After weeks of anticipation, Singapore has been selected as the venue for the first ever summit between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will meet on June 12th for talks on the North’s denuclearization, drawing keen attention from around the world on whether the meeting will change the course of history on the Korean Peninsula. 
Lee Bo-kyung has this report. 

Report: U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the first ever summit between the U.S. and North Korea will take place in Singapore on June 12th. 

Trump tweeted that "The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong-un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th." He added "We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" 

The announcement came just hours after Trump personally welcomed home three Americans freed from North Korea at Joint Base Andrews near Washington. 

Trump had floated the idea of holding the summit at the truce village of Panmunjeom along the border between the two Koreas, but White House aides reportedly saw Singapore as a better location. 

In the meeting, to be held five days after the G7 summit in Canada, Trump and Kim are expected to discuss the dismantlement of the regime's nuclear weapons program, ending the Korean War by turning an armistice into a peace treaty and possible U.S. rewards for the North’s nuclear dismantlement. 

In a statement Thursday on the release of the three former detainees, the White House reaffirmed that the top priority at the talks will be the complete, verifiable and irreversible nuclear dismantlement or CVID. 

In Seoul, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said the top office hails the summit and hopes it will pave the way for realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and establishing lasting peace in the region. 

A senior presidential official later said that it would have been better for South Korea if the talks were held in Panmunjeom, but respects the decision of the North and U.S. 

As the date and site for the Trump-Kim summit have been fixed, the presidential office expected that the first hotline conversation between the leaders of the two Koreas will take place soon. 
Lee Bo-kyung, KBS World Radio News. 

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