The Latest on the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Singapore (all times local):
9:05 a.m.
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are sharing a historic handshake as they meet for the first time.
The two clasped hands for a long while Tuesday as they posed for photos in front of a row of U.S. and North Korean flags. Trump then directed Kim to walk down a hallway, where they briefly spoke.
It’s the first ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader.
Trump and Kim arrived not long ago on Singapore’s Sentosa Island, the site of their unprecedented summit. It’s aimed at settling a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
The two will huddle alone for roughly 45 minutes before being joined by aides for a larger meeting and working lunch.
Trump has said he’ll know within minutes whether a deal can be made.
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8:35 a.m.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived at Singapore’s Sentosa Island, where he’ll be meeting shortly face-to-face with President Donald Trump.
The two men are expected to share a handshake before they meet alone with a pair of interpreters for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby.
After the intimate huddle, they’re scheduled to hold a larger meeting and working lunch. Trump’s chief of staff, national security adviser and secretary of state are among those expected to join.
The meeting is the first sit-down between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader and is meant to settle a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Trump earlier defended his decision to meet with Kim, tweeting that North Korea has already released three detainees and that missile tests have halted.
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8:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump has arrived on Singapore’s Sentosa Island for his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump’s motorcade pulled into the grounds of the Capella Hotel at 8:13 a.m. Tuesday local time.
He is scheduled to meet Kim for the first time at 9 a.m.
Kim is also en route to Sentosa Island for the meeting to discuss the fate of his country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
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8:15 a.m.
Kim Jong Un’s entourage has left for the luxury Singapore island resort where the North Korean leader will meet with President Donald Trump.
Kim’s black armored limousine with two large North Korean flags was surrounded Tuesday by police vehicles, their lights flashing, and other black cars.
There’s excitement surrounding the summit but also skepticism that the North will relinquish a nuclear weapons program it spent decades building despite crushing sanctions.
Kim and Trump are scheduled to meet alone, with their interpreters, after greeting each other at the resort.
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7:50 a.m.
North Korea’s state media has reported on Kim Jong Un’s late-night tour of Singapore with unusual speed.
Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday filled its front page with photos of his visits to Singapore’s landmarks, including the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Bay Sands resort.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying that Singapore is "clean and beautiful and every building is stylish" and that he will learn "a lot from the good knowledge and experience of Singapore in various fields in the future."
It’s rare that security-obsessed North Korea reports on Kim’s activities within hours. When Kim visited China for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in March and May, state media didn’t report on the trips until after he returned home.
Some experts say North Korea is trying to keep up with the speed of the Western media in Singapore.
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7:05 a.m.
President Donald Trump is sitting down with Fox News host Sean Hannity after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Fox News says the interview will take place Tuesday at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island in Singapore. Trump and Kim are set to meet on Sentosa Island on Tuesday morning for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby.
The interview is set to air on Fox’s "Hannity" at 9 p.m. Tuesday on the U.S. East Coast, which is 9 a.m. Wednesday in Singapore.
Fox News says Trump will talk about the meeting with Kim and future relations between the two countries.
Hannity is a friend and confidant of the president and speaks out in support of Trump on his show.
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6:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump says the "haters & losers" are complaining that his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is a "major loss," but he notes that the U.S. has gotten its three captives returned and that the North’s nuclear missile launches have stopped.
Trump tweeted early Tuesday from Singapore, just hours before his face-to-face with Kim.
He says, "The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers." But he says "our hostages" are back home and testing, research and launches have stopped.
He says, "These pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say!"
Critics have argued that Kim has notched a win by getting a sit-down with the U.S. president.
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5:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump says "we will all know soon" whether he can reach a deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to end its nuclear program.
Trump is tweeting hours before the leaders’ historic face-to-face that, "Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly."
But he says that, "in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!"
Before leaving Washington for Singapore, Trump said his gut instincts will guide him when he gets into the room with Kim.
He told reporters he’ll know almost immediately whether a deal can be made, saying: "I will know, just my touch, my feel. That’s what I do."
Their meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Singapore time.
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4 a.m.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the U.S. has picked up no indications that North Korea’s military is in a heightened state of alert in the run-up to the Singapore summit.
Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that "All’s quiet" in North Korea.
Mattis is declining to discuss his expectations for President Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
He says he does not expect it to include a negotiation over reducing the number of U.S. troops in South Korea – currently about 28,000. He says that, at least initially, this is a matter between Washington and Seoul.
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1:45 a.m.
For better part of an hour, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will square off one on one, alone but for a pair of translators. That’s raising concerns about the risk of holding such a monumental meeting with barely anyone to bear witness.
Trump and Kim will meet on Singapore’s Sentosa Island for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby.
The huddle will come before a larger meeting and a working lunch attended by top advisers to the president and their North Korean counterparts.
Word of the private meeting unleashed a torrent of criticism on social media from national security veterans who worry the lack of a transcript will create a he-said-he-said showdown that could turn into a major headache for Trump.
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12:40 a.m.
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has arrived in Singapore, hours before President Donald Trump is set to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time.
Rodman emerged from the baggage claim area at Changi airport around midnight Monday. He told reporters he wasn’t sure if he would meet Kim in Singapore.
Last week, Rodman said he would "give whatever support is needed" to his "friends" Trump and Kim.
White House officials have said Rodman will play no official role in the diplomatic negotiations. Trump said last week that Rodman had not been invited to the summit.
He is one of the few westerners to have met the North Korean leader on visits to the capital city Pyongyang.
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11:30 p.m.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to seize the opportunity "to support a peaceful, prosperous, secure and verifiably denuclearized Korean Peninsula."
The U.N. chief is commending the two leaders for pursuing a diplomatic solution and "seeking to break out of the dangerous cycle that created so much concern last year."
Guterres told reporters Monday ahead of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore that "peace and verifiable denuclearization must remain the clear and shared goal."
The secretary-general says he wrote to both leaders last month saying "the road ahead will require cooperation, compromise and a common cause."
He says the U.N. system "stands ready to support this process in every way, including verification if requested by both parties."
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11:15 p.m.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry is warning that if President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fail to reach a deal at their Singapore summit, there’s an increased danger for a "catastrophic" military solution.
Perry says, "If it falls apart, it’s probably worse than as if we ever started."
Perry says he’s hopeful the two leaders will discuss normalization of ties as well as denuclearization to improve the prospect for long-term success of any deal.
He spoke Monday to The Associated Press at a Luxembourg Forum Conference on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe event in Geneva.
Perry also served as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to North Korea and traveled there in 1999 to discuss its nuclear and missile programs.
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11 p.m.
The White House says President Donald Trump plans to visit U.S. military bases in Guam and Hawaii on the return from his historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump is expected to depart Singapore on Tuesday night after his meeting with Kim on Sentosa Island. Before leaving Singapore, the president is scheduled to address the media.
The White House says the president will stop at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday and also travel to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii later in the day.
The president visited the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor last November on his way to Asia.
Trump is expected to return to the White House on Wednesday morning.
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10:30 p.m.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (le dree-AHN) says he will be the first one to applaud U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un if they reach a deal on nuclear weapons disarmament of the Korean Peninsula.
Le Drian says that "everything that has to do with disarmament is positive."
The French foreign minister met Monday with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom in Stockholm. Le Drian cautions "we have been enthusiastic before and it has led to failures."
Wallstrom hosted talks in March with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Stockholm. She says one should be prepared for both "a fruitful meeting and a failure."
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9:56 p.m.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is out of his luxurious hotel for a late-night city tour hours ahead of his summit with President Donald Trump.
Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan (Bal-a-krish-nan) says Kim went to the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on Monday night.
The foreign minister posted a photo showing him with Kim at the place on Facebook.
South Korean media says Kim went there with his sister Kim Yo Jong and other top deputies.
Kim is meeting Trump on Tuesday for a historic summit aimed at discussing the future of his nuclear program.
It would be the first summit between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
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8:20 p.m.
The White House says in a statement ahead of President Donald Trump’s historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that the talks with North Korea are moving "more quickly than expected." The White House says Trump now plans to depart Singapore on Tuesday evening ahead of schedule.
The White House says Trump will address the media on Tuesday following his summit with Kim and depart Singapore at approximately 8 p.m. local time for the United States. The president had been expected to leave Singapore on Wednesday morning.
Trump is set to meet with Kim in Singapore on Tuesday morning.
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7:30 p.m.
Seoul says President Donald Trump talked with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (jah-YIHN’) about his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and expressed optimism for a diplomatic breakthrough.
South Korea’s presidential office says Trump filled Moon on the details of the pre-summit negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. The Blue House didn’t elaborate on what Moon was told during the 40 minute telephone call.
The Blue House says Moon told him South Koreans will be praying for a "miraculous result."
Moon said earlier he hopes the summit will be a "historic milestone" for peace but it will only be the first step in a complex and lengthy process. Moon says the hostility "cannot be solved at once by a single meeting between the leaders."
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6:25 p.m.
Iran says North Korea should be wary of negotiating with President Donald Trump following his withdrawal from the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said Monday that North Korea should approach this week’s summit with Trump with "awareness." He says Iran views Trump and the United States with "great pessimism," saying they are known for "quitting treaties and violating their commitments."
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the Obama administration had reached with Iran, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. The agreement required Iran to curb its uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Trump has announced the restoration of U.S. sanctions, while European leaders are trying to preserve the deal.
The U.S. president is set to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.
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6:15 p.m.
President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to return to Singapore for a state visit this fall.
That’s according to Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Trump is expected to travel to Asia in November in conjunction with a pair of regional summits.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the president’s fall plans.
A White House read-out of Trump’s meetings with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (lee haz-ee-en lahng) Monday did not include mention of a state visit.
Singapore will be hosting Trump’s summit Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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6:00 p.m.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States is prepared to take actions to provide North Korea with "sufficient certainty" that denuclearization "is not something that ends badly for them."
Pompeo is briefing reporters in Singapore ahead of President Donald Trump’s summit Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He says the U.S. is prepared to show North Korea that rather than denuclearization posing a threat to North Korea, it’s "the opposite."
Pompeo won’t say whether Trump would consider withdrawing U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula.
Pompeo says that U.S. sanctions on the North will remain in place until the North denuclearizes. But he says if diplomacy fails to move in the right direction, the sanctions "will increase."
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5:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump called the leaders of South Korea and Japan Monday ahead of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
That’s according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is briefing reporters in Singapore. He says Trump spoke by phone with the two U.S. allies as preparatory talks continue between American and North Korean officials ahead of the leader sit-down Tuesday morning.
Pompeo says there is "enormous potential" for the summit, but lowered expectations that the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will happen after one meeting. He says: "We are hopeful the summit will have set the conditions for future productive talks."
Pompeo also says Tuesday’s meeting presents a test of Kim’s willingness to agree to deal his nuclear weapons away for "protections" from the United States.
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3:05 p.m.
The lobby of President Donald Trump’s hotel in Singapore has turned into a bustling mixing ground for U.S government officials of all stripes.
At the swanky Shangri-La Hotel, Secret Service officers are huddling in preparation for the president’s movements. White-uniformed U.S. Navy members are perched on pearl-colored couches. Top State Department officials can be seen strolling through the lobby. An Associated Press journalist spotted CIA officer Andy Kim, a Korea expert and part of the U.S. delegation, making his way through.
They’re joined by seemingly unsuspecting tourists, youth groups and a curiously dressed bellman with a tall, plumed hat.
The hotel was picked in part due to its experience in hosting high-security events. Recently top military officials including U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis were at the hotel for the Shangri-La Dialogue, a global defense summit.
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2:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump has returned to his hotel in Singapore following a lunch meeting with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (lee haz-ee-en lahng).
Singapore is hosting Tuesday’s historic summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to discuss the fate of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who sat next to Trump at the lunch, says in a statement that Trump is "well-prepared" for the meeting.
Pompeo met Kim during two visits to North Korea in the lead-up to Tuesday’s summit.
Trump was scheduled to attend a meet-and-greet at his hotel with U.S. Embassy personnel.
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2:10 p.m.
President Donald Trump got an early birthday celebration during lunch with Singapore’s prime minister.
Trump met with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (lee haz-ee-en lahng) and aides to both leaders Monday. Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs tweeted a photo of Trump and a cake adorned with one candle.
The caption said: "Celebrating birthday, a bit early."
Trump turns 72 on Thursday.
But before he celebrates, Trump meets North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in a highly anticipated summit on Tuesday.
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2 p.m.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in (jah-YIHN’) has no current plans to join President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the end of their summit Tuesday in Singapore.
Moon spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom also said Monday that Moon has no plans yet to speak with Trump after the meeting.
Moon has expressed hope that the summit will lead to a three-way declaration also including Seoul to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. But Moon’s spokesman says it’s unlikely that such a declaration would take place while Trump and Kim were still in Singapore.
Trump has raised the possibility of further summits and an agreement ending the Korean War by replacing the armistice signed in 1953 with a peace treaty. China and South Korea would have to sign off on any legal treaty.
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1:15 p.m.
President Donald Trump says he thinks "things can work out very nicely" with North Korea on the eve of his historic summit with Kim Jong Un.
Trump expressed optimism about Tuesday’s meeting during a working lunch with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (lee haz-ee-en lahng) and aides to both leaders.
Trump says "we’ve got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely." He also tells Lee the decision to hold the summit in the island city-state of Singapore was "made very consciously" and offers thanks.
Trump tells Lee that "we appreciate your hospitality and professionalism and your friendship."
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1:05 p.m.
President Donald Trump has thanked the prime minister of Singapore for hosting Tuesday’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump told Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (lee haz-ee-en lahng) that it was a "real honor" to be with him. Trump commented as representatives from both countries took their seats for a working lunch at Singapore’s government house.
The discussions come on the eve of Trump’s historic meeting with Kim.
Trump and Lee shook hands for photographers after a one-on-one meeting and before they entered the room for lunch.
Among those representing the U.S. at lunch are Secretary of Secretary Mike Pompeo, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton.
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1 p.m.
The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, plans another round of meetings Monday afternoon with North Korean officials as both sides continue to prepare for Tuesday’s summit in Singapore.
That according to a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration. The official was not authorized to comment publicly about on internal deliberations and requested anonymity.
Trump is set to hold a historic summit Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the island city-state.
Sung Kim has taken the lead on policy negotiations with North Korea. Sung Kim held an initial round of meetings with the North earlier Monday.
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12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un spent Monday huddling with advisers in luxury Singapore hotels less than half a mile apart, readying for a nuclear summit that could define the fate of millions, and their own political futures.
Both sides also worked to finalize preparations for the unprecedented summit.
The meeting was kicking off at 9 a.m. Tuesday with a handshake between Trump and Kim. A U.S. official says the leaders then plan to meet one on one, joined only by translators, for up to two hours before admitting their respective advisers.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations and insisted on anonymity.
Tuesday’s summit will be the first between a North Korean leader and a sitting American president.
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