"Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base late Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP.".North Korea has yet to provide any official confirmation of the summit and Kim Jong Un appeared to make no mention of it during a meeting earlier with the top brass of the Korean People&China Flexible universal neck for kitchen Manufacturers39;s Army."My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un," Trump said."But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means."It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28. The State Department confirmed Biegun agreed to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol again before the leaders' talks.In a statement, the State Department said talks during Stephen Biegun's three-day trip explored Trump and Kim's "commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Washington: US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet for a second much-anticipated summit in Hanoi, as preparations kick into high gear for the peace talks. The US envoy was also likely to have discussed with his counterpart protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit.At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Biegun is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday."The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South.Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war.

I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim & advancing the cause of peace!" The US State Department said the special US envoy for # North Korea will meet again with Pyongyang officials ahead of the Trump-Kim talks -- hours after he returned to Seoul from talks in the North on the summit's agenda.Trump announced the exact location on Twitter -- only the country, Vietnam, was previously known -- for the follow-on to the leaders' summit in Singapore last year as he hailed "very productive" preparatory talks between diplomats from the two countries. Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV.As reported by state media, the meeting focused on the need to modernize the military while maintaining party discipline in the ranks.Attention will focus on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps toward denuclearization

But will doing nothing help?According to a former high commissioner, not having a dialogue doesn’t give India any leverage against Pakistan; it isn’t a kind of punishment that will prompt Pakistan to be more amenable.Some in the top brass of the Pakistani Army still harbour dreams of avenging the humiliation of 1971 and Kargil. What’s more, millions of Pakistanis are smitten by Bollywood divas while Pakistani singers have scores of fans in India. That wasn’t surprising.The writer is a retired Indian diplomat.At a recent congregation at the India International Centre, New Delhi, a majority of attendees responded in the negative when asked if India and Pakistan will ever have good neighbourly relations.A former diplomat suggested that technology could be a facilitator in forming good neighbourly relations between the two countries.Can these young men an women be the agents of de-radicalisation?Naysayers dismiss such woolly-eyed romanticism of peaceniks; it is bound to fail, they say.Isn’t it true that in the past 70 years no matter how fiercely the two countries have fought, how many lives have been lost and whatever they might have said against each other, sooner or later, India and Pakistan have returned to the discussion table? While right now no one can predict when the bilateral dialogue will be resumed, it will happen some day for sure.There also is a need to engage the China Wholesale brass faucet aerator Factory Pakistan Army in direct talks, but we haven’t yet figured out how that can be done.5 billion. They remind how Pakistan had funded the Khalistani movement in the late 1980s and is forever trying to revive it. The only redeeming factor was the optimism shown by a handful of individuals in the hall. Why? Because there is no denying the fact that, in the long run, having cordial relations with Pakistan is in India’s national interest. May be not like the United States and Canada but, at least, as neighbours who have learnt to live with each other peacefully. According to the chambers of commerce, in spite of turbulent bilateral relationship, India-Pakistan annual trade is estimated at $2 billion; the unofficial figures claim this figure to be $4. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and China’s increasing role in Pakistan, especially in the running of Gwadar port, is a cause of concern for India.

They repeat the already established narrative about India-Pakistan relations: the creation of Pakistan and the horrors of Partition; Pakistan’s sinister designs since 1947: intrusion by the Rangers/Army, the conflicts of 1965, 1971, Kargil and terrorist attacks at the Red Fort, our Parliament and 26/11 in Mumbai. They point out, and rightly so, that Pakistan hasn’t yet taken any action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack and is unlikely to do so. No matter how faint this optimism might seem at the moment and how thick and blinding might be the fog of scepticism, it does give us a ray of hope. Similarly, India can exploit its growing warmth with Iran and request it (Iran) to reason with Pakistan not to waste its meagre resources in fighting India through a proxy war. He could also be nudged to pressure Pakistan to shun terrorism as a state policy. They also talk about how dismally the government capitulated before the hardline protesters leading to the resignation of its law minister; the existence of hundreds of terrorist camps and Pakistan’s use of terrorism as a part of state policy.All Prime Ministers of India, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, have tried to have closer relations with Pakistan. However, it is believed that the sons of generals in Pakistan aren’t too keen to follow in the footsteps of their fathers; they would rather explore success in other fields; this reflects a generational change in their attitude. Many of them have built industrial empires by projecting false threats from India and fuelling anti-India sentiments.

On the social front, there are thousands of families whose relatives are living across the border, and they always look forward to easing of tensions between the two countries as it would make connecting with their family on the other side of the border hassle-free. Further, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman seems determined to project his country’s image as a modern nation. Besides, it has also been funding militant activity in Jammu and Kashmir for years.Now is the time to foster our relations with Pakistan. Thanks to Chinese support, Pakistan probably has more nuclear weapons than India. The United States is exasperated with Pakistan for its half-hearted fight against terrorism; terrorist attacks against Chinese nationals in Pakistan are on the rise and though China has repeatedly blocked Masood Azhar’s inclusion in the UN list of terrorists, deepening Chinese apprehension about the dangers posed by Pakistan-based terrorists in its Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province should be exacerbated to our advantage. They will flag the known reality that the Army and the ISI call the shots in Pakistan while the elected civilian government has no say in matters related to foreign affairs and defence.They are right: Pakistan wants no role for India in Afghanistan. The GenNext on the two sides of the border, hooked on social networking sites as they are, propelled by their aspirations to partake the fruits of the 21st century, free from the rancour, bitterness and infectious hatred flowing from memories of the past, could possibly form an “Internet community” to interface, interact and share things of common interest to help overcome mistrust and generate a degree of understanding and appreciation of each other in today’s context and, in the process, sow the seeds of friendship which can better relations between the two neighbours. Pakistan’s aspirational generation can’t remain blind to India’s progress and the high esteem it commands internationally; the youngsters question why it wasn’t the case with Pakistan