Washington,
\nAs preparations are under way for the historic US-North Korea summit, American officials are trying to solve the logistical issue of who will pay for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un\u2019s housing at an island resort off the coast of Singapore, a report said.<\/p>\n
With its economy weakened from tough sanctions, North Korea is requiring that a foreign country foot the bill at its preferred lodging: the Fullerton, a neoclassical hotel near the mouth of the Singapore River, where just one presidential suite costs more than $6,000 per night, The Washington Post reported.<\/p>\n
The diplomatically fraught billing issue is just one of numerous logistical concerns being hammered out between two teams led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Kim\u2019s de facto chief of staff, Kim Chang-son, as they strive toward the June 12 meeting.<\/p>\n
After weeks of uncertainty, President Donald Trump called off the summit last week, blaming \u201copen hostility\u201d from North Korea.<\/p>\n
But a flurry of diplomacy across two continents got the meeting back on track, and Trump announced on Friday that he would attend as initially planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to paying for lodging at North Korea\u2019s preferred five-star luxury hotel, the US is open to covering the costs,\u201d informed sources told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s mindful that Pyongyang may view a US payment as insulting.\u201d As a result, US planners are considering asking Singapore, the host country, to pay for the North Korean delegation\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Saturday did not rule out the possibility that the US would arrange for Singapore\u2019s government to pay for the North Korean delegation\u2019s accommodations, but said Washington \u201cis not paying the costs of accommodations in Singapore for the North Korean delegation\u201d.<\/p>\n
During the PyeongChang Olympics earlier this year, South Korea set aside $2.6 million to cover travel accommodations for a North Korean cheering squad, an art troupe and other members of the visiting delegation.<\/p>\n
At the same Games, the International Olympic Committee paid for 22 North Korean athletes to travel to the event.<\/p>\n
In 2014, when former US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. visited North Korea to retrieve two prisoners, his North Korean hosts served him an \u201celaborate 12-course Korean meal\u201d. The veteran intelligence official insisted that he pay for it.<\/p>\n
Figuring out how to pay Pyongyang\u2019s hotel tab will not be the only unusual planning obstacle that comes with hosting an event with the isolated regime, the sources told The Washington Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, As preparations are under way for the historic US-North Korea summit, American officials are trying to solve the logistical issue of who will pay for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un\u2019s housing at an island resort off the coast of Singapore, a report said. With its economy weakened from tough sanctions, North Korea is requiring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32971,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32969\/revisions\/32971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}