President hopeful, but some skeptical ahead of US-NK talks

WASHINGTON (AP):

An enigmatic North Korean leader takes a secretive train trip to China to affirm fraternal ties and declare a commitment to denuclearisation.

It sounds like Kim Jong Un's visit this week, but his father and predecessor Kim Jong Il made similar declarations on a trip to Beijing, months before he died in 2011. Yet North Korea's nuclear weapons development only sped up.

President Donald Trump expressed optimism yesterday after the younger Kim's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying there's "a good chance" that Kim will "do what is right for his people and for humanity". But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that the US-North Korean summit slated for May will produce the breakthrough that Washington wants.

After a year of escalating tensions, Trump agreed to talks after South Korean officials relayed that Kim was committed to ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and was willing to halt nuclear and missile tests.

That has tamped down fears of war that elevated as Trump and Kim traded threats and insults and North Korea demonstrated it was close to being able to strike the US with a nuclear-tipped missile.

Kim's meeting with Xi offered some reassurance that "denuclearisation" will be up for negotiation if the first summit between American and North Korean leaders in seven decades of animosity takes place.