for to for dr evil. five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape the war. on counting the cost why iran's nuclear deal and other powerful factors are at play in a new game of oil it could mean steeper prices at the pump. and into korean summit but what would a thaw in relations mean for their economy. counting the cost. he has no passport yet he's politically active in two countries i was the only one on the power had peaceful transition when because the short term expired in our part of the world some people think you are stupid the crazy if you do that mikhail saakashvili former president of georgia and next governor of the odessa region in ukraine talks to al jazeera.

this is al-jazeera. hello and welcome to the program jonah hope this is the news hour live from london coming up. john luden pledges a new history with south korea as he becomes the first north korean leader to set foot across the border since one thousand nine hundred fifty three. three dead just more palestinians are shocked during protests of the gaza border despite the u.n. urging israel to stop using excessive force. campaigners celebrate as the approves a near total ban on pesticides that are harmful to be.

they thought they declared the end of an era and if any after as well to the. north and south korea of valuing to work towards a complete denuclearization of the peninsula after historic face to face talks between kim jong un and moon j. in it was a day of symbolic moments beginning with kim crossing the border into the south the first north korean leader to do so since war broke out on the peninsula in one nine hundred fifty and then in an apparently unscripted moment kim and moon crossed back into the north together that they are celebrated and they braced as they released a joint statement announcing what moon called a new age of peace on the korean peninsula in the afternoon they shared a long private conversation on the historic border bridge which connects the two countries they then helped plant

a pine tree on the border symbolizing peace and prosperity using soil from both the north and the south diplomatic editor james byrd has more now from paget on the south side of the border. technically they are still at war but this was carefully choreographed to create a new atmosphere of peats north korean leader kim jong un entered from the north side of the demarcation line the south korean president moon j in waited at the concrete block that marks the start of his country's territory. a historic handshake. and then something in all the years since the korean war the kims father and grandfather never did a north korean leader crossing into south korea. but. it was followed by a reciprocal gesture moon jay in very briefly crossing the line into the north.

both leaders seemed relaxed and was smiling but of course they hope this summit is only the start of a process and that's likely to be complicated and will involve difficult negotiations. on a much head on the danes this meeting i hope that there is new history written with regards to peace prosperity and i will approach this with the feeling of a brand new start. when the supreme leader across the demarcation line on the systolic moment there was an immense expectation on us all over the wild and i hope this discussion is productive over lunch the north korean leader and his fast moving security detail headed back to the north side so he could confer with other members of his delegation then a few hours later a symbolic moment

a tree planting using earth from mountains in the north and the south and water from the two biggest rivers on both sides another image filled with symbolism as the two crossed a foot. bridge together then in a move highly unusual in international diplomacy they stopped the two leaders sitting face to face alone with not even no takers for over half an hour on ing out the final issues of their declaration it was signed and they made these statements . to charge him under a charge it's very significant that north korea took a measure of freezing its nuclear activities first it will be a valuable beginning for the contemplate denuclearization of the korean peninsula came jong un and i declare that there will be no more war on the korean peninsula and a new age of peace has begun and again i also know your eye injury and you know i feel that we are part of one family and both countries you have

a new policy of cooperation after years of disputes we are here today to say that nothing will make us different again and i will say this north koreans and the south koreans are now sharing one spot on the map and they represent one country in one way or another and we hope to achieve the ambitions and hopes of both countries on the fact that this summit took place in itself is historic but if some of the things in this declaration actually happen they too will be landmark developments a formal end to the korean war a peace treaty between north korea and south korea and the return visit by president moon to pyongyang in the fall one part of the agreement though will face particular scrutiny and that's the pledge of denuclearization of the korean peninsula the language used in the declaration gives no concrete details and no timeline. the wives of the korean leaders join the delegations through

a formal banquet to end a long day of diplomacy but this is only the start of a lengthy and very difficult process james pays out zero apush you in south korea. and from that historic meeting let's take you to the white house where donald trump's been meeting with going to merkel he's talking about in the korea's summit now listening on the north korean regime which has helped us to reach this important step this moment where we are right now taking a long time many many decades to get here let's see what happens we seek a future of peace prosperity and harmony for the whole korean peninsula unlock in not only a brighter future for the people of korea but for the people of the world however in pursuit of that go we will not repeat the mistake of past administrations maximum pressure will continue until denuclearization occurs i look forward to our

meeting should be quite something in our meetings today the chancellor and i discussed iran the iranian regime feels violence bloodshed and chaos all across the middle east we must ensure that this murderous regime does not even get close to a nuclear weapon and that iran ends its proliferation of dangerous missiles and its support for terrorism no matter where you go in the middle east wherever there's a problem around is right there as we are radek a take what little remains of isis in syria we must also ensure that iran does not profit from our success to prevent this outcome it is essential that our coalition . and regional partners step up their financial and military contributions to the end efforts some of these countries are immensely wealthy and they're going to

start paying for it and paying for this tremendous help that we've given them the chancellor and i also had a productive discussion about the security of europe and the responsibility of european nations to properly contribute to their own defense we addressed the need to strengthen nato and the nato alliance by ensuring that all member states honor their commitment to spend two percent and hopefully much more of g.d.p. on defense it is essential that our nato allies increase their financial contributions so that everyone is paying their fair share we look forward to seeing further progress towards improved burden sharing a lot of people of stepped up a lot of countries have stepped up and they're going to have to continue to do so

tremendous amount of additional money has been raised for nato over the past sixteen months and i'm proud to have helped but they have to keep going in this age of international crime smuggling terrorism and traffic it is also essential that we have strong border security and immigration control this is fundamental to national defense also vital to our security and that of our allies is america's ability to maintain a strong and robust manufacturing base which we really are doing in the united states we have additional steel plants opening steel plants are expanding aluminum is doing great lot of things are happening that were never going to happen before. that's why we must have a fair and receptor a coal trading relationship with our friends and partners we have a trade deficit in goods with the european union of approximately hard to believe

one hundred fifty one billion dollars a year including a fifty billion dollar annual trade deficit in order as an auto parts i'm committed to working with chancellor merkel to reduce barriers for united states exports to remedy these trade imbalances and deepen our economic ties we also welcome the chancellor's partnership in promoting major reforms to international organizations like the world trade organization which has not treated the united states well to protect sovereignty and ensure fairness the close cooperation across multiple fronts military intelligence economic academic is critical to the defense of

our civilization as we know it. and the close friendship between the german and american people enrich is the lives of millions and millions of our citizens jess le thank you again for visiting the white house it's an honor to have you our alliance is strong and thriving and together we will overcome shared obstacles seize upon shared opportunities and build an incredible future for our country and our people thank you very much thank you jensen thank you very much. youngest thank you hire would like to say thank you first of all. everybody here and also the opportunity to be here today in the white house it is the first time after the reelection that i went outside of europe and it was important for me to show that for germany the transatlantic relationship is of the

utmost important important we know that these relationships are. an existential nature they are the foundation for the reunification of germany and i spent the first half of my life on the other side of the i'm curtain about the fact that we have been reunited in germany is also majorly due to the united states of america and the certainly and shapes our future cooperation which is even more important now in a very turbulent world we will remain a reliable partner within the nato we are also rely put out within the e.u. all the more because we are fighting against nuclearization of iran. against isis against terrorism against terrorism in afghanistan and africa so we are dependent on all these heights on each other today we meet here at a on

a day that also makes it clear that the strength that. the us president donald trump has used to make sure that the sanctions against north america are a tier two really opened up new opportunities and the meeting between the south korean president their moon and kim jung un was a first step on a path that will lead to a hopeful future we hope we germans can certainly one heal and empathise with first contact after after a long decades of stepping. separation but of course we will have to continue to have a very clear view to making sure that nuclear is ation of korea north korea is stopped and this is also our aim we also have to. cooperate regarding iran and the nuclearization of iran we believe that the nuclear

accord with iran is a first step that our that has helped to slow down the activities and to better monitor them but also we are in germany also believe that this is not sufficient. in order to. make iran a reliable partner and therefore we need more of the ballistic missile program is certainly a major concern the fact that iran is influential in syria and lebanon is also a major cause of concern for us and we must therefore indeed contain this influence what we also have to. make sure that there is more reliability in the future past the deadline of the a quarter so i think the usa and europe should work together in order to end the

terrible bloodshed in syria and find a solution for the whole region that we have of course also spoken about our tasks are regarding a new defense in two thousand and nineteen in germany we will have. a share of one point three per cent in our defense spend of the g.d.p. we know we have not reached the target yet but we do you stand by the agreements that we reached in the whales and we also talked about trade and trade first of all we should say that there are very close economic relations between germany the. the usa we want a fair trade as well we want a trait that certainly follows the melter ability multilateralism of the cio but we also know that no international agreements have been reached by the w t o for a long time and therefore by letter all agreements can certainly take this place

and we have done so in the past years within the e.u. with the e.u. and other countries as well and that's why i can certainly imagine such negotiations to take place with the united states of america but still this needs to be very. finely coordinated i would like to point out overall that on the one side we certainly have a trade and we have already managed to use the trade. surplus that we have had but on the other hand america is also a very good investment ground for us and we can be very proud of the fact that not only one hundred thousand of cars are exported from germany to the usa but also from the u.s. to the world that are produced by german companies. with of course american employees who i believe have very good and fair terms and conditions so this is

a very strong link between our countries we will continue to discuss these trade questions in the south in the summer we'll have the nato meeting where we will meet once again an incompletion i would like to say apart from the political relationships that are very close and sometimes probably are carried by different perspectives but really on a very friendly basis we have many things that link the nations with its culture with it science and to germany is still the biggest base for american troops in the u.s. in europe about seventeen million us. soldiers have been stationed in germany since the second for well and many many very close relationships have to put on this and i am very happy that the us ambassador in germany will now be able to continue this tradition and we will certainly welcome him in germany and be a very happy that he has now got this position so thank you very much.

and i will take some questions. like berman it was. like. thank you mr president chancellor merkel ask a couple questions of the president first i want to ask you to step over it and here i want to ask you about a couple comments that you made in the oval office earlier in which you said about north korea that they have played the u.s. in the past like a fiddle but that's not going to happen to us do you as a relates to hopefully getting peace on the korean peninsula denuclearization of the korean peninsula do you feel as if you need to be the closer in that deal do you want to be the closer in that deal or do you think that's something that is shared by all of the major stakeholders all of the world leaders within that region and secondly indulge us if you might you said that the relationship with north korea's been strong or one of the words you used have you spoken with kim jong un

himself or do you plan on speaking with i don't want to comment on that you plan on sorry we have a very good working relationship we're setting up a meeting things have changed very radically from a few months ago you know the name calling and a lot of other things. we. we get a kick every once in a while out of the fact that i'll be watching people that failed so badly over the last twenty five years explaining to me how to make a deal with north korea i get a big big kick out of that but we are doing very well i think that something very dramatic could happen they're treating us with great respect and you know what's going on with south korea and i think president moon of south korea was very generous in saying that we helped make the olympics a great success because of the fact that as you know there was a tremendous animosity there was a tremendous problem going on and all of

a sudden people started buying tickets because whole different feeling when north said we'd love to go to the olympics so a lot of good things are happening with respect to north korea president obama told me when i had one meeting with him he said that's your biggest problem that's going to be the most difficult thing you have and honestly i wish it was handled earlier i wish it were handled by another administration years ago i'm not just talking about president obama i go back to any administration you want but over the last twenty five years this should have been handled a long time ago not now they should not have been left for me to handle but we will handle it we're handling it well and hopefully they'll be peace for north korea and south korea germany i mean everything is included japan the chancellor has been very helpful in the maximum pressure campaign as i said really very helpful so have many other nations president xi of china has been really good at the border

everyone surprised at how tight he planned down everyone said that he just talk about it he wouldn't do it when he did it and he did it out of a relationship that we have and also out of the fact that we're negotiating trade deals and i think that's also very important to him hopefully will come up with something that's good for both countries. so i think some very good things can happen with respect to north korea we're setting up meetings now we're down to two countries as to a site and we'll let you know what that is you have a question for the chancellor just just a follow up or quickly do you do you feel like it's your responsibility for this to eventually get settled between north and south korea i think i have a responsibility i think other presidents should have done it i think the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of the president of the united states and i think we have i think i have a responsibility to see if i can do it and if i can't do it it will be a very tough time for a lot of countries and

a lot of people it's certainly something that i hope i can do for the world this is beyond the united states this is a world problem and it's something that i hope i'm able to do for the world ok. and chancellor if it's the chancellor merkel that's a soft sorry. sorry sorry or is thank you very much i'm just wondering if you've been given any assurances that the european union will be exempt from steel and aluminum tariffs come tuesday the may first deadline that the president trying to tell you what he may or may not to thank you. the president president will decide that it's quite clear we have had an exchange. on the status of the negotiations and the different perceptions and i think the decisions with the president. mr ross.

thank you i have a question for the chancellor but i'd like to start with a question on iran for you mr president after a long day of talks with you president my craw went to congress warned of a new war in the middle east and asked the world and the united states to respect the sovereignty of all countries including around in the absence of a new agreement are you prepared to use military force to rein in the nuclear program in iran or do you have another plan b. that is not an agreement and not military force i don't talk about whether or not i'd use military force it's not appropriate to be talking about but i can tell you this they will not be doing nuclear weapons that i can tell you ok then i got to be doing nuclear weapons you can bank on it ok please. what is counselor not

farnum ya body goes all. the major worry on berlin boss the president was not willing to show strength. because of the terminations against russia and now you've come here and. worried about it and sanctions against some russian oligarchs or have you asked for some exemptions for german company and you're currently worried about even. so the u.s. president and under in wanting to be it's the hardest. opponent and now being too tough but you know first of all we didn't talk about. ukraine and we're working together very closely against the illegitimate illiterate illegitimate. actions the illegal actions of russia in crimea and i am very happy that we are working so closely together with the american administration. in addition to the

minsk format so we will continue doing this secondly the sections have also started off in the congress and we are working together with for instance with the finance secretary. in order to talk about all the secondary effects of such sanctions some of it was what i think regarding the conflicts within russia and the role of russia in syria for instance we have a huge degree of agreement here and nobody is interested in not having good relations with russia but if there are conflicts and if he thinks happen such as in crimea these need to be mentioned clearly and the principle of territorial integrity of a country such as crimea is extremely important and therefore has to be respectable woman has got seven tongues it and i was told that chancellor let's did you say thank you for that this was a satisfying discussion and discourse between america and genuine yes. when

i thought i have questions i can also tell us and i believe that the exchange exists and that the sanctions have been passed and that will compress and we have pointed out what the. facts. and i think the behind the minister has talked about this when they met in the end to terrorism in the finance conference and paris and if i have further issues then i can certainly talk to the president about them ben kennedy was sybian. mr president two questions for you the first one on ronnie jackson it's been one day since he bowed out i know it's only been less than twenty four hours have you have a new nominee for the secretary of the department of veteran affairs and my second question is on the u.s. embassy set to open in jerusalem in three weeks have you decided if you do plan to attend and also can you confirm if treasury secretary stephen asian is leading

a delegation that can include your son in law. and evocate from. ronnie jackson admiral dr is one of the finest band that i've met over the last long period of time high quality high quality family i just met them and i explained what happened i explained that washington can be a very mean place you don't know about that chance. and nasty place the false accusations that were made about him by senator tester from a great state i don't think that state is going to put up with it these were false accusations a bad a great man about a man who has a son who's a top student at annapolis about a man that's given his life to this country and to the military a brave man who would have been a great leader to say the kind of things that he said. you had president obama

giving him an a plus report you had president bush giving him an a plus report president trump giving him an a plus report and to make statements of things that most people said never happened never even happened calling them names would to me a disgrace an absolute disgrace and i think it's something we learn from i called them today i said in a certain way you're not in a very big way you're american hero because you've exposed the system for some horrible things i've had it happen to me with the russian collusion hoax it's a hoax but i came into the job understanding that things happen he didn't he's a great doctor is a great admiral he didn't really think

a thing like this could happen and i think it's a disgrace i just want to comment on that and then actually i'm glad you asked the question i think this man has been treated he's an american hero and i think he's been treated very unfairly. as far as the nomination have you put forward a new nomination and i have many people that want that position if you can believe it with all of this being said we have some excellent people some very political people some people that. a thing like that wouldn't happen or if it did happen i guess they'll handle it somewhat differently. but we have many people that want that job we're very proud of the job we've done for the veterans the veterans have been we've gotten accountability approved which is something that for years for years they've been trying to get as you know they couldn't get it approved we got accountability so that when somebody treats our veterans badly we can fire them so

fast almost as fast as they fire people in germany. we'll get rid of them and i will tell you we're getting choice we're putting choice in very very strongly we have tremendous support in the senate for that but i do have a lot of people who want the job we're getting we're doing a great job over there and for the vets and you know that was one of the things that to me was the most important had tremendous support from the vets we're getting great reports but getting the things such as accountability done will be soon getting choice meaning if a veteran stands on a line and can't get to a doctor for various reasons they're going to a private doctor in this country is going to pay they're not going to wait nine weeks online for a cure to something that could have been very easy to cure and then they end up dying from it. so we're going to we're i'm very proud of what we've done and i will tell you your new head of the v.a. is going to be very exceptional we have some exceptional people that want to do the

job before i get a chance for merkel i wanted to backtrack to the u.s. embassy opening up in jerusalem you said in the past that you would like to go so they came to me this is a little bit of a governor somebody said could i tell this story and they came to me with a proposal for a one billion dollar embassy in jerusalem and the papers mike pence can tell you the papers were put before me to sign an application for more than one billion dollars to build an embassy i said what are you talking about a billion dollars you know most embassies are like a single story and they said yes sir it's one billion dollars and i had my name half cent then i noticed the figure and i just didn't i never got to the word trump i had donald signed but i never got to the workshop and i called my ambassador who is a great lawyer most people in business know david friedman he's the best sitter to israel and loves israel loves our country loves israel and i said what's this

one billion he said i can build it for one hundred fifty thousand dollars. he said i can build it for one hundred fifty thousand dollars the embassy we have a building we have the site we already own the site we own the building i can take a corner of the building and for one hundred fifty thousand dollars we can fix it up make it beautiful open our embassy and stead of in ten years from now we can open it up in three months and that's what we did but i said david let's not go from a billion dollars to one hundred fifty thousand let's go to three four hundred thousand and that's what we did we would take a piece of the building it's going to be beautiful. and it will be somewhat temporary but it could be for many years because by the time they build it the other way it's going to be many many years they were looking for sites we already have a site and we have a great site to say it's better than any thing you could imagine but that's the way government works they're going to spend a billion dollars and we're going to spend much less than a half

a million could have done it for much less than that but i said let's make it really nice so that's what it is i may go very proud of it jerusalem has been a subject that's been promised for many years as you know the embassy in jerusalem it's been promised for many many years by presidents they all made campaign promises and they never had the courage to carry it out i cared so i may go it's getting ready to open and i do want to tell that story because there are a couple of people that got to see it including mike but others where literally they were going to spend a billion dollars a wisp ending a tiny tiny fraction of that in the hundreds of thousands of dollars instead and it will be very nice maybe it'll be nicer than a billion dollar building ok for the chancellor was all chancellor i wanted to ask about the iran nuclear deal you just heard president trump say that iran will not be restarting the nuclear program you can bank on it do you fear that if the u.s.

backs out that iran will restart their nuclear program and also you're the second european union leader or european leader to stop here at the white house this week what improvements did you recommend to the president they need to be changed in order to keep the u.s. in the deal. would not mind well. i have made my position clear that i believe in god i think that this accord is far from being perfect in order to solve all problems with iran but that it is one element that you can build on. i think that in the last weeks maybe two months we have worked together very well with great britain move fronts and the us and japanese in order to cooperate here and now we will see what this is not to say taken on the american side i have pointed out from our point of view that the whole region is a very important to us because it's not thousands of kilometers away from us as is

the case for the usa and iran and syria. iran and syria countries right next to our back door and therefore this certainly is of the utmost importance to us and we were remain in touch. because you know at least one of the nation post problem is constantly to have your chance well. you did so i once called virus a country of longing and i'm sure you said that these times had changed and that possibly the same six year of that had to take its fate into its own hand what would now have hear you spoken with the president about this development is that europe and the usa are drifting apart and and should germany not and now be totally independent and all the us is that he managed to increase the human shields and

expenditure mr president many people are. irritated by the way that you use threats on interpreter for your work as a president i wanted to ask you whether america first it just means that the leadership was approach of the usa will have less of a reconciliation during approach. and as such the decision falling on remains with you so as to the exemptions possible exemptions for terrorists what is your position on this will there be a water raised with this big economic blockade of europe or do you see a way out. well firstly america for many people in germany but also in un tree other countries remains the place of longing forty four million people we talked about have their roots in germany that have been living

here for generations but also for those who have not lived here but to live in germany. for those as well as the u.s. it is a fantastic country and if there are differences of opinion in certain areas you have to talk about it but this strong country and country of freedom is in no way diminished by this and therefore we don't have to take anything back yard and i didn't of course say that germany and europe have or can take us more off their fate into their own hands because. we. don't have to be tensions on the usa always helping us as they did during the cold all they still help us but i think step by step we have to take it into our own hands and the us have certainly. been committed in regions that are very far from the united states

of america and i can understand that the population over here might say well what does this really. bring us as a benefit and therefore i can understand the position so we are growing out of lowell where for many years after the second it was the. people who were very happy for germany not to commit or we come committed i would share many areas because of course there was so much that was due to germany and the nazi. dictatorship yes so we as the germans have now for the to grow and we are actually very proud to feel the fact that we have given them the second largest amount of soldiers are. within nato and maybe the president thinks we are not fast enough but from a german position away have taken important steps and we will have to continue to do so we cannot expect that when there are conflicts just at our

door that others will solve these problems so i think certainly we will have to grow into this position this also means there needs to be more development agency we have to fight against the causes of flight and we also have to be active on the diplomatic level and we are for the very first time within the small group that has met in paris and looks at syria together with saudi arabia syria and the u.k. we want to be part of this this is our duty as well and therefore i don't see it as us having to complain it is more that we have to know that as an economically successful and a big country just as the president says you economically successful you know have to live up to the military expectations as well and we will certainly try and do that and when there are differences of opinion we will talk about them thank you chancellor we need a reciprocal relationship which we don't have. the united states right now has

a trade deficit with the european union of one hundred fifty one billion dollars and the chancellor and i have discussed it today at length and we're working on it and we want to make it more fair in the chancel wants to make it fair same thing with nato we have a far greater burden than we should have other countries should be paying more and i'm not saying germany alone other countries should be paying more and we're protecting europe and yet we pay by far more than anybody else and nato is wonderful but it helps europe more than it helps us and why are we paying a vast majority of the costs so we're working on those things it's been unfair and i don't blame the chancellor and i don't blame germany out or even blame the european union i blame the people that preceded me for allowing this to happen. there's no way we should have a trade deficit of one hundred fifty one billion dollars so we're going to make it

reciprocal we're going to make it a much more fair situation and i think in the end everybody is going to be very happy i think both countries i view this as many countries but looking at it as one bloc will will really benefit there is tremendous tremendous potential between the european union and the united states and i think that's going to happen there's also tremendous benefit to nato when people pay what they have to be paying some countries actually pay more than this of us that they think the united states is i've been told by numerous country poland being one poland it's great i mean they pay actually a little bit more than they're supposed to be paying or have to pay because they feel the united states is more than carrying the load and perhaps they feel it's not fair but it's something we very much appreciate. but i believe that you know when i look at the numbers in germany and some other countries they may

not like donald trump but you have to understand that means i'm doing a good job because i'm representing the united states. is representing germany she's doing a fantastic job my predecessors did not do a very good job. but we'll try and catch you ok we'll try we're going to we're going to have a reset brickell relationship and it's going to be something that benefits all of us ok thank you very much everybody thank you thank you uncle thank you very much well you've been listening there to a press conference at the white house donald trump appearing with the german chancellor angela merkel after a few hours of meetings today talking about a wide range of subjects relations between the two countries trade deficits tariffs contributions to defense funds nato and so on of course the summit meeting in the koreas spoken of by both leaders a historic meeting said donald trump decades in the coming in the pursuit of peace we will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations and perhaps the hot topic

between them the iran nuclear deal which many fear donald trump is shortly going to pull the united states out of his chancellor merkel a great defender of it of course she said it wasn't perfect but it was perhaps the best start available we have correspondents monitoring events at the white house and in the south korean city of padua overlooking the border with the north let's start first though with our white house correspondent kimberly hell kit and kimberly those comments by donald trump about north korea as he has done before as he seems to miss no opportunity to do bashing his predecessors saying one of them should have sorted this out it shouldn't have been left to me but this is something i hope he said i can do for the whole world. yeah i think that's the headline that is coming out of this news conference which had a couple of headlines but the major one is certainly when it comes to north korea it found the first question there by one of the american reporters asking whether

or not donald trump had in fact spoken directly to kim jong il and he said he would not comment about that but then didn't rule out that that had also occurred by saying that they have a great working relationship and even acknowledging the change in tone between the two leaders compared to a year ago when there was the name calling the little rocket man promising fire and fury if there is continued nuclear testing now what we have is donald trump saying earlier in the week that kim jong un is an honorable man promising that potentially dramatic things could happen that good things could happen coming out of this so it certainly does appear that donald trump for all of his sort of boyish behavior and name calling that we've seen since he's taken political office certainly recognizes that there is an historic opportunity not just for the united states but for the world that he feels where his predecessors have failed and perhaps articulated that

somewhat badly at the same time he recognizes that there is this opportunity and seems to recognize the importance of that and in terms of these talks with chancellor merkel and i haven't spent an awful lot of time together but they've locked horns on a number of issues judging by the press conference trade nato and so on but it is this issue of iran that would have been top of the agenda clear differences between them although chancellor merkel seeming to say in that press conference look it's not perfect they still like separate but it's the best thing we've gone. yeah it doesn't look as if it was successful in trying to persuade donald trump to stay in the iran nuclear agreement that was negotiated between six world powers in twenty fifteen and certainly we had this kind of two pronged approach this week with two european leaders first the french president emmanuel mccraw on tuesday and now angola merkel the german chancellor trying to persuade donald trump to say look at make this the first pillar of a supplemental agreement where we can address the issues of regional instability of

ongoing missile missile ballistic missile testing and this can all be addressed within that but we certainly heard from mike pompei or his top diplomat in brussels today that it seems unlikely donald trump is listening to these european leaders and that was certainly underscored what we heard from merkel just now that she said i made my position clear that the j.c. is something we should build on and we've promised to remain in touch it doesn't sound like she secured that promise that many in europe and around the world were hoping for in terms of trying to persuade the united states to to stay within that agreement committee of the white house thanks so much for that let's move on now to south korea for more on the day's events kathy novak is there in the south korean city of praja that's just pretty close to the border from what i can tell and going back now to that meeting some hours ago huge ambition in the words spoken by both leaders peace between these two countries denuclearization and so on but not

a lot in the way of detail no timeline is clearly still an awful lot of work to do . particularly when it comes to denuclearization we heard from president trump there saying that maximum pressure will continue until denuclearization occurs what we had from the meeting between president monday and then the north korean leader kim jong un today was this declaration that they share a goal of a nuclear free korea through complete denuclearization and the acknowledgment from president when j. and that north korea has taken steps just in recent days to ward that goal when it announced that it was stopping its nuclear and missile tests and shutting down a nuclear test size but there were no new commitments from north korea in terms of denuclearization other than talking about it as a broad goal and also no talk about how this will proceed when it comes to

ridding north korea of its nuclear program dismantling it and making that verifiable but really when it comes to the meeting between the leaders of the two koreas it may have been enough that there was this symbolism that there was this grand peace declaration we heard this referred to by chancellor merkel there as an important first step because what mungy and has wanted to do through this entire career in summit is to really set the scene for the summit that is hoped will take place between president trump and kim jong un in late may or early june and we heard president trump there say that the venue has been narrowed down to two different sites but no date still confirmed yet kathy novak coming to us from roger in south korea thanks so much. now it's not clear when people in north korea will see or where you can hear about how the summit went they were told on friday

morning that kim jong un was going to be president but so far there's been no further updates on state t.v. public discussion of the leaders active. these is unusual in north korea not unusual here on al-jazeera the scalia to is president of the committee for human rights in north korea which is based in washington he joins us live from there now and i'd like to pick up on that point which is extraordinary perhaps to many people watching people in north korea may be pretty much in the dark certainly about the details of what's happened here how do you think they would react north korea is a totalitarian regime extraordinarily oprah sieve it restricts information flow entering into the country from outside the country it controls its propaganda and the way it communicates with its citizens the citizens of north

korea living under such oppression will hear the message that the regime wants them to hear i think it is very unlikely that the regime will admit that because of its weaknesses it has agreed to this summit meetings it has agreed to return to the table perhaps the regime will claim that it is negotiating from a position of strength it has created its nuclear and missile deterrent and thus perhaps the south koreans the americans and the others are so willing to talk to the games on the regime that might be one of the messages on vade to the people of north korea given the talk of such had these subjects as peace between these two countries and denuclearization of north korea where do you imagine the issue of human rights mind rank in the list of subjects to be discussed. the foreign minister of south korea. made it clear that human rights would not be

discussed it was not some how the joint declaration touched up on freedom of movement and separated families of course we must remember that this jovially smiling young man the leader of north korea had his own uncle executives' with an anti-aircraft machine gun in december two thousand and eleven his uncle john's on pick and had his own half brother assassinated with a vx nerve agent at a busy international air boarding or there are one hundred twenty thousand men women and children in north korea as a political prison camps there has been a savage purge going on on and swatch hundreds and hundreds of senior north korean officials have been purged executive sent to camps together with cole igs associates family members a u.n. commission of inquiry found in february two thousand and fourteen was that this

regime commits crimes against humanity against its own people despite the choreography and the beauty of the inner korean summit we have to remember that the nature of the north korean regime has not changed it is still committing those serious human rights violations and crimes against the side of a jovial young man as you describe him who clearly isn't accountable to his own people who hasn't. very good history of putting the interests of his people for would why should he if he should be trusted. i don't know him personally but i think we have to look at north korea's diplomatic track record it is not a good record in north korea the north korean regime has zero diplomatic credibility i think that on our side as far as the trump administration is concerned this administration has signaled that this is going to be realistic

diplomacy based on a full on the standing of north korea as a lack of diplomatic credibility and also based on a full understanding of the fundamental strategic objectives of the came regime the fundamental strategic objective is the survival of the regime of course the kim regime does not want its people to die by the millions but what if what it has to do is to sacrifice them by the millions in order to stay in power it will do it in the blink of an eye and this happened in the nine hundred ninety s. when up to three million people starved to death scott two i'm sorry to cut you off the president of the committee for human rights in north korea many thanks for your time. stay in china seven school children have been stabbed to death in the country the

children aged between twelve and fifteen were attacked as they made their way home after school in me she county in shanxi province several of the children were injured a suspect is now in police custody. three palestinian protesters have been killed by israeli fire another day of demonstrations along the gaza israel border around forty palestinians have died in the weekly protests which began at the end of march at the seventieth anniversary of the mass liston in x. xplosion also known as the nakba the un's human rights chief has called on israel to stop using excessive force on palestinian protesters in gaza stephanie day has more now from the scene one of those border protests. we've been witnessing quite extraordinary scenes here over the last couple of hours thousands of people running towards the border fence with israel that what you're looking at now this is the closest the protesters have ever come to that border fence when it comes to the

last five weeks of friday protests what happened is you had this whole crowd of people run towards that the israeli forces because they're all standing just where we are at the moment they moved to the right chase them down that way and then we heard a whole opening of live fire trying to push people back from that border and then we saw ambulances racing pastas at least ten we've seen a couple of people injured also we're being told it's very difficult to collect some of the injured from close to the border fresno israel has made it very clear they want people to stay away from this three hundred meter what they call a buffer zone they say that people will be shocked well people seem to have lost their fear here certainly those that we've been speaking to throughout the day say that this for them is a moment where they feel that the international community perhaps is listening to their voice at some point they say they will always tell you how desperate the

situation here in gaza has become and they will say when you all small israel says hamas is behind this there's a real threat to the border they will tell you no you know most people we've certainly seen families youth yes they go to the border fence yes they throw stones yes they throw molotov. but there you're dealing with one of the best equipped armies in the world this is their way of resisting what they call the occupation resisting a blockade that gives them no freedom of movement joblessness here for example the new sixty percent unemployed there are no opportunities they live on four hours of electricity a day the list goes on and on and what you're seeing here is people have lost their fear and they will tell you they will continue to do this despite the dangers facing israeli life fire romania's president is urging the prime minister to resign saying he wasn't consulted about a plan to relocate the country's embassy in israel to jerusalem prime minister vo or it's done chiller visited israel or live this week she wants to follow america's

lead by moving the embassy from tel aviv the president who has the final say on the relocation plan warned it could break international law the european union has voted for a permanent ban on pesticides that are harmful to be campaigners have called it a tremendous victory for the environment the pesticide company called it a sad day for europe and its farmers through and vegetable crops of pollinating by bees and other insects but modern farming techniques have been blamed for a steady decline in numbers. and you can find much more as of on our website all the top stories of the w.w.w. al-jazeera dot com that's it for me sue turton will be here in just a moment with another bulletin of the dave snews thanks very much for being with us but i.

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