US President Donald Trump holds up the letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the White House on Wednesday. --Photo Yonhap via the Korea Herald

DPRK leader’s letter to Trump to play positive role: S. Korea’s Blue House

SEOUL (Xinhua) -- The letter by Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), to US President Donald Trump will play a positive role in denuclearising the Korean Peninsula and building lasting peace, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said Thursday.
Kim Eui-keum, the Blue House spokesman, told a press briefing that Kim’s autograph letter to Trump was anticipated to play a positive role in the peninsula’s complete denuclearisation and the settlement of permanent peace.
The comment came after Trump said overnight that he had received a “great letter” from the DPRK leader, expecting another meeting with Kim soon following their first summit in Singapore in June last year.
In the New Year’s address, Kim said he was ready to meet again with Trump at any time, confirming that his country would completely denuclearise the peninsula and improve inter-Korean relations.
The DPRK leader noted that he was willing to reopen the inter-Korean industrial zone in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong and resume the tours by South Koreans to the DPRK’s scenic resort of Mount Kumgang on its east coast “without any preconditions.” Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed during their September summit in Pyongyang to normalise the two inter-Korean cooperation projects as soon as “conditions are met.”
The normalisation, however, has been delayed under international sanctions on Pyongyang. The Blue House spokesman told reporters that the two inter-Korean projects would play a positive role in building peace on the peninsula as well as the peninsula’s denuclearisation.
The Kaesong Industrial Complex was closed down by South Korea in February 2016 over the DPRK’s fourth nuclear test in the previous month. Before the shutdown, 123 South Korean companies ran factories in the industrial zone, hiring about 54,000 DPRK workers. The tourism project to Mount Kumgang, launched in 1998, has been suspended since a South Korean tourist was shot dead in 2008 by a DPRK soldier after allegedly venturing into an off-limits area.

(Latest Update January 4, 2019)