Kim, Trump in countdown to historic summit

Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un were making last-minute preparations Monday on the eve of their historic summit, as officials scrambled to narrow yawning differences over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal.

Tuesday's meeting will be the first time a serving US president has sat down with the leader of North Korea, and comes just months after fears of conflict soared as the two traded personal insults and threats of war.

"I just think it's going to work out very nicely," said Trump at a working lunch with the prime minister of Singapore, where the meeting is being held.

Behind the scenes, officials held talks for nearly three hours at a neutral hotel, seeking to bridge gaps over "denuclearisation", which means vastly different things to the two parties.

The diplomacy is an extraordinary turnaround from last year, when Trump threatened the North with "fire and fury" and Kim dubbed him a "mentally deranged US dotard".

The summit has also raised hopes of progress towards a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, the last festering legacy of the Cold War, after hostilities only stopped with an armistice.

The two men will first meet one-on-one in a closed session, before a larger meeting with key advisers, US officials said.

A senior White House official said Trump was "feeling good" and that the summit was open-ended.

"It could be two days. They will talk for as long as they need to," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

- Hostile policy -

Pyongyang is demanding as yet unspecified security guarantees and the end of what it calls a "hostile policy" towards it, and has not made clear what concessions it is offering over the nuclear arsenal it calls its "treasured sword" to defend against a US invasion

AFP