ULAANBAATAR, Oct 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Mongolia has invited Kim Jong Un to
visit the nation’s capital, which once hoped to host the historic summit
between the North Korean leader and US President Donald Trump, an official
said Tuesday.
The invitation comes amid expectations that Kim and Trump, who met in
Singapore in June, will hold a second summit — a time and location for which
have yet to be determined.
According to Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga’s office, the
invitation was sent to Kim on October 10, though no specific date was
proposed.
The North Korean leader can visit “whenever he feels convenient”, an
official from the president’s office told AFP, confirming a report published
Monday by North Korea’s KCNA state news service.
Mongolia had offered to host Trump and Kim for their landmark summit in
June, but they ended up picking Singapore, where they agreed to a vaguely-
worded statement on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
Trump said last week that three or four unspecified locations have been
short-listed for their next meeting, but it would “probably” not be in
Singapore again, and he did not give a date.
Kim’s only other known foreign trips since taking power in 2011 was three
visits to China this year.
He has also met South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Demilitarized
Zone separating their countries, where he momentarily crossed into
Pyongyang’s southern neighbour.
Mongolia, a democratic nation wedged between China and Russia, is one of
the few countries that has normal relations with the authoritarian regime in
North Korea.
The two countries celebrated 70 years of diplomatic ties this year.
Kim’s grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, visited Mongolia
when it was still a Soviet state in 1988.
In October 2013, Mongolia’s then-president Tsakhia Elbegdorj visited
Pyongyang and was the first head of state to meet with Kim since the North
Korean leader succeed his late father, Kim Jong Il, two years prior.
Almost 1,200 North Koreans were living and working in Mongolia at the end
of last year, before UN sanctions against Pyongyang required them to leave.