Washington: U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told reporters on his return flight from Singapore on Sunday evening, June 3 that it will be a "bumpy road" to the summit with North Korea. Mattis made similar comments when he met with defence ministers in Singapore.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he would hold the meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in a dramatic turn of course in the high stakes diplomacy aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. Eight days after cancelling the summit citing Pyongyang's "hostility", Trump announced the decision to go ahead with the meeting after hosting Kim's envoy in the White House, saying he expected "very positive result" with North Korea.
North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has been a source of major security tensions that persisted despite a series of U.N. and U.S. sanctions and it has also demonstrated advances in ballistic missile technology that experts believe now threatens the U.S. mainland.