and returning to build something huge for the next generation cleveland to use the multimedia environment series to w. . this is deja vu news live from berlin it's all smiles at the historic summit and singapore as donald trump and kim jong un meet. very. very very few. are truly sure thank you they do gooders are now in my lateral talks with their aides and advisers will bring you all the latest

live from the summit. i'm irish waiter thank you for joining us after a handshake for the history books u.s. president tom will trump a north korean leader kim jong un are sitting down for talks and singapore what happens now especially regarding north korea's nuclear weapons is really anyone's guess d.w. washington bureau chief alexandre phenomena is following the story for us in singapore and i'm also joined here in our studio by back to back our he's the head of the asia program at the german council on foreign relations alexander let's start with you on the ground for us in singapore this started it with some very heated rhetoric and it's been going on for a year or so how is this the sturrock singapore meeting going to affect

people in the u.s. how are they going to look at president trump now and will this mean that trump support gathers even more steam. well i think if the summit is really a success and it seems to be go going pretty well and if president can label this summit or can claim the summit to be a success that it's going to have an impact of the public opinion in the you asked just remember that many exploration were very sketchy told before this summit started and also many of trump's opponents political opponents were very critical of the president criticizing that he is committed to have having this summit only after a short time of preparation so if everything is going to work out right for trial it is going to be a success also for his domestic audience however we have to say this this is

a very unique president and i've been covering him since he's in the gratian and i have experienced that sometimes even when donald trump has a sort of success foreign policy success for example then it could be that the next day or on the same day he is going to say something or to tweet something about maybe i don't issue and then you would think that this foreign policy success is almost disappearing and as you know we are talking here about a very important foreign policy event here in singapore when trump returns home he is going to find the same situation he left there is still a russia investigation going on looking into an alleged collusion between trump come pain and russia looking into potential obstruction of justice and that is of course something that is waiting for president trump at home. and alexander as you

said trump is a very unique leader with a unique style and as is kim jong un and i believe we have a report that wall. inform us and tell us a little bit more about what that means. to unpredictable leaders to nations with a hostile past the world watched as north korea's kim jong un and u.s. president donald trump shook hands in singapore. a first for them and for any u.s. president and north korean leader it almost didn't happen trump called it off before saying it was back on now the adversaries who have threatened nuclear exchange are exchanging pleasantries. we will really get their. practices and prejudices worked against us but we overcame all of them and we are

here today i think with. the face to face between the two men moved on to a team meeting at a working lunch the u.s. wants north korea's denuclearization north korea wants u.s. security guarantees commitments that have been promised and reneged on before trump is confident that this time will be different but its past efforts have shown it's a long way between a handshake and peace. so we're live in singapore with our d.c. bureau chief alexander phenomenon here in the studio with that paragraph from the german council on foreign relations bad we've seen some positive reactions at least from trump so far are you optimistic about what this summit is going to look like at the end i'm really optimistic or feel listen to. it or kim you're going at the beginning he said we overcame older yachts to come to this meeting and i think

that's true of needed it's true leaders who actually take this step and of course need to take more steps in the future there will be a lot of risk management it won't go without the need to build. trust. people who do that and have the states to set up a process to have some. expectation management for the future but then. as you said on the tables it's quite positive and the looks under president trump has boasted that hill know immediately whether a deal can be reassured him and we know that they're now in their bilateral meetings and we also know that trump can be somewhat uncompromising do you think that trump is really ready to hold hands with north korea and not just have a handshake. well i think it's interesting but having success here for. something that it's very important for him. you have to watch him when reports. of the

nobel peace prize always very happy to be asked this question. if you really want to achieve something here the ultimate goal is of course to neutralization but i think it was a good sign. that this meeting today can only be the beginning of a longer process. everyone was speculating that this meeting might go into overtime but president trump has announced actually be leaving the meeting early should we be reading anything into that. well the white house said yesterday that the discussions between the u.s. and north korea have moved more quickly than expected and that it was very considered a very positive sign and that could be the explanation why presidents trump is

ready to leave singapore today as you might know he doesn't like traveling that could be another reason for him to be willing to go home and the other thing is that there are rumors that kim jong un is also going to leave singapore soon so maybe that's also the thinking behind that that. doesn't want to stay here longer than kim jong un anyway what we're hearing right now that meeting is really going pretty well we have quite interesting quote from king jong un who apparently is talking to as they were walking along the way people some people will think that this is a scene from a science fiction movie that was pretty funny i would say and shows that both leaders seem to understand over at the moment at least the scene from

a science fiction movie i like that analogy a lot generally travelled a long road to get here and there's been some concerns from analysts that this meeting happened a little bit too quickly it's hard to forget that just a short while ago these two leaders are really threatening each other and threatening each other's countries and now there's concern that not enough preparation went into this what do you what do you think what's your opinion on that really have to admit that i was one of these people who are saying that it was too much too soon there was also consider a learning curve for inside of the u.s. administration during the past months of the visit so state secretary. joan young and the consultations that happened during recent weeks on the border so i think the expectations are not as high as they used to in the beginning when this meeting was announced they think they can have some reasonable outcome today that is showing the future of these frozen basically

a time table and basic ideas how they should interact now as we heard from alexandra donald trump himself has been saying that he hasn't done much preparation he says is going to follow his instincts and he'll know right away within the first minute of the summit is going to be successful what's your reaction to the united states president going into such a tricky politically fraught historically fraught talk with the north korean leader . mean there is some interest in the court it's a ball that the tribunal has had to shake hands that have to display that they are committed to a process so that doesn't need too much president preparation on their side of course the diplomats have prepared the summit they have looked into the details and even prepared to paper that both sides hopefully signed ledger this day all right well of course as we've said it's been a long road getting here and of course it started with insults and then an

agreement to meet followed by a cancellation and then a restart and the relationship let's have a back look at the unexpected series of events that led to this is stork meeting. from foes to friends the road to the historic summit in singapore has been more than a little rocky. and exchange of insults followed after north korea repeatedly tested long range missiles infuriating the u.s. president their rocket man their rocket man rocket man is a sick puppy. when pyongyang announced an august last year it was close to developing a missile capable of reaching the u.s. trump responded with a threat of biblical proportions. they will be met with fire and fury. like the world has never see. kim jong un

oncet by calling the u.s. president a mentally deranged don't taunt. and the war of words culminated in a contest over who had the biggest nuclear button. but then in february a change of. the ice between north and south korea thought at the winter olympics and pyongyang extended an invitation to donald trump you know i'll be meeting with kim jong un in the coming weeks at the end of april the leaders of north and south korea met for the first time kim jong un crossed into the south. and when jay in crossed into the north they agreed to work on team nuclear izing the korean peninsula. and they pyongyang extended another all of branch and released three american prisoners i think he did this because i really think he wants to do stop thing. two weeks later kim jong un appeared to make good on

a promise detonating parts of his only no nuclear testing site. then washington threw a curve ball citing hostility in recent north korean comments. decided to terminate the planned summit in singapore in june twelfth first just one day later and now the turnaround the meeting might be back on trump's explanation. everybody you know that. after a flurry of diplomatic activity including a visit by a top north korean envoy to the white house plans for the historic summit and. now the world is waiting to see whether in the first face to face meeting the two leaders can move on from that it for tat rhetoric and produce meaningful results. so bad we have seen ups and downs and outs and ons and offs on this oh this

relationship already now or here now they have met now they're talking what is your idea of what the best case scenario could be coming out of the summit basically that both sides commit troops from a colt's that is the dictator cleaves asian or process stories to nuclear and a peace treaty to replace the old disagreement and the war that lasted for so long at the same time there can be small steps that both sides agree that the normalize the relationship intensified diplomacy and set up a time table for future talks. and i like sandra it's. interesting sight to see these american flags next to the is north korean flags because for so long really the highest diplomat that america had in north korea was dennis rodman the former basketball star who's really quite a character himself but now donald trump and kim jong un seem to have hit it off or what the hypothetical situation of something now goes

a raw what's the worst that could happen. oh that's a very interesting question and actually it's good that we didn't see president strong president trump walking out of the first by a literal meeting with kim jong un because he had promised to do so if the meeting is not fruitful so he didn't do anything like that there are still talking and this is the good side although analysts say that it could be very dangerous if the talks are not going to be fruitful today however we can have to say that it would be quite difficult for the u.s. to continue its maximum pressure campaign against north korea after kim jong un was here and seeing a poor having side seeing two or being you know like church and world come as a rockstar so by meeting with donald trump he can now say that it was

a success for him he's seems not to be as good as he was before so it was a success for him and as i said it would be quite it's difficult for the u.s. to convince its allies and partners to continue the sanctions and the maximum pressure come pain if this summit is not going to be successful about the big topic on the table today is denuclearization what does that actually look like what are the steps and how would we be able to tell if north korea has in fact denuclearize would they let inspectors in. well that would be part of the process the first step would also of course be freezing the program not build new do clear weapons and of course lead to inspectors and taking stock what kind of technologies that choose to set up nuclear weapons to the nuclear facilities to to generate

raynier with the direct so there's this basic thing that has happened the second step of course there needs to be the process of decommissioning the technologies which is a very technical detail process which is six long time to set up and that is basically what has to go on during the process during the next months or years even that alexander let's also talk about denuclearization. simply from a policy standpoint do the u.s. and north korea have the same idea of what the word denuclearization means. well they didn't have the same idea about that in the past yesterday's u.s. secretary of state from peo told us that for the u.s. it's the ultimate goal to have a complete reversible verifiable denuclearization of north korea so the goal is here basically to convince north korea to get rid of all its nuclear weapons

programs and so on but in the past in north korea and. when they were talking about cynics there was a they were talking about the nuclearization of the whole korean peninsula they were even referring to the u.s. capabilities of using nuclear weapons to protect their allies japan and south korea so i think it would be a key issue here of course and it will be interesting where we are going to see something and it could be a great success then for president trump if we can see something as a proof that the north korean regime that kim jong un is really willing to give up his nuclear weapons and on the ground in the koreas of course the prospect of a peace deal for the korean peninsula is raising hopes that families divided by the korean war could be reunited in our next report sent by our correspondent and heartache who's also been covering the historic summit in singapore we need

a south korean man who thought his older brother had died during the war until a letter smuggled to him from the north proved otherwise. a few old photographs and a couple of letters. only proved one sign has that his relatives somewhere in north korea it would put them in danger to show their faces on television. his older brother unsigned tells me fought for south korea in the korean war almost seven decades ago chunks of bach was taken prisoner by the north the family was told he had been killed but then sixty years after seeing his brother for the last time chang sign received a letter from north korea from his brother delivered through a contact in china that was ten years ago it made sense sine happy and sad at the same time. when i saw the photo i could instantly

tell the world my brother but you can see how impressive he looks rather than actually i remember him as such a cheerful person. you know. his brother passed away shortly after chang signed got the letter with but he left behind a family of his own to sign hopes that with thawing relations between north and south and the upcoming summit he might finally get the chance to meet his relatives . with a moment as i get older my desire to meet them is growing stronger i want to get to know that side of my family now with the summit no one seems more likely we'll have a chance to meet which i'm still not sure if i should trust the politicians but i just can't help but hope it will finally have. the money could it be there's a. chance signed isn't the only one in south korea getting his hopes up. many here believe that the summit will produce

a positive outcome maybe even paving the way for a peace treaty to finally end the korean war sixty five years after the last shot was fired and more and more south koreans are even changing their mind about north korea's dictator kim jong un and self is in the t.v. it was. always seemed. you got to get what he said and what he was going to summon a little pause probably smarter than i thought so but i got the impression he's actually leading the country sort of. combines to do was. turn. the inner korean summit changed many people's opinions about him. but that doesn't change the fact that he's a dictator in oppressive communist regimes the young it's. not. easy my parking lot. is the biggest issue during

the meeting as a korean i have the impression that the will to give up the weapon it's hard to say i hope the u.s. or its green summit flow through. good cream it's just. small. expect something. based on the inner screen somebody a few weeks ago i would like to do something great such as a declaration to end the korean war. so my boss was just. sometimes chang side and his wife come to the national cemetery in seoul to find his brother's name on the wall of missing soldiers. even though chance the book is no longer missing they don't want his name deleted sold was his home they say they hope that maybe one day his children in north korea can come here to.

thank easy to forget in all this talk of policy that there's a human side to this as well so obviously there are a lot of expectations and hopes riding on the summit bad but do you think that kim will be able to come out of these talks with a full deal with just in just one short summit no of course not there will be a lot of declarations about the tensions and. to the cation through to the final goals and of course these kind of issues rich but you just saw i think between the two careers and their approach the process that's taking place there in the past as has been the case that these steps like family reunions were put on the agenda for the north koreans to display the willingness to agree to engage on a broad approach to show goodwill and that usually when for a long and stopped as soon as diplomatic efforts stopped so it's very important notice to separate this process is that negotiations between the u.s.

and north korea and the reproach when north and south korea oleksandr what we've seen so far some positive reactions us the sun. it has been going on but trump was very heavily criticized for the fact for holding the summit why is that and how could a holding this summit be a bad thing. well he was criticized because he first of all agreed to have this summit without having any concessions from the north korean regime so this fact was highly criticized in the u.s. and then he was also criticized for having the summits and not being prepared enough and that's of course something that he himself said he doesn't need to preparation that he would rely on his in sting's that he would go into this talks and just have a feeling we're over there is a realistic chance of having

a good outcome so for all of that he's been criticized but i also talked to many experts in the u.s. and they told me that actually it is a good thing that stood to almost see has a chance that both sides. are now talking with the each other and not trading barbs just remember only a few months ago or last year we were on the brink over war so. therefore i think many people now when they see this summit as a success if it's going to be a success they will be quiet. quite optimistic that it could be a start of a long process and that it was the right thing to do to start this process by meeting. xandra whatever the attitudes are this is the first time a sitting u.s. president has met

a north korean leader and whatever trump is critics say this is history in the making how do you think this is going to play with the u.s. is allies and of course with the people back at home of the u.s. who are watching this happen. well i think as i say if this summit. or if the president can claim that this summit at the summit to be a success it's going to be applauded in the u.s. . but maybe even among his critics. allies of course then we have to see what is going to be the exact all to come out of this meeting whatever the south koreans are going to be happy with that watch japan that was quite afraid. be ready to all for a came too much because he's so eager to make this summit

a success so whatever japan will be happy with the what will be the outcome of this summit aleksandra phenomenon our washington d.c. bureau chief. with here in the studio in berlin thank you both very much for your insights and analysis. and just a reminder of the events so far today a historic handshake between donald trump and kim jong on the leaders of the united states and north korea are inside the capella hotel off the course of singapore meeting with aides and advisers following a one on one session he spoke briefly to the media trump says talks are so far quote very very good and they already have a quote excellent relationship kim says the two countries have overcome old prejudices an obstacle will continue to bring you the events live from singapore as they unfold thanks for watching today of your news stay with us.

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