The US and North Korea have settled on a venue for the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday.
Trump and Kim will meet for the first time at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa Island on June 12, Sanders announced Tuesday via Twitter.
“We thank our great Singaporean hosts for their hospitality,” Sanders tweeted.
Delegations from the US and North Korea met four times last week at the Capella Hotel to hash out the logistics of the summit, with setting an appropriate venue for the summit at the top of the agenda.
Sanders said Monday the meeting will take place at 9 a.m. local time on June 12 (9 p.m. ET on June 11).
The red-shingled, colonial-style Capella is a five-star hotel on Sentosa Island, which boasts several resorts, hotels, two golf courses and a theme park.
US and North Korean officials considered several other hotels in Singapore as potential locations for the summit, which will be the first meeting between a US and North Korean leader.
A top option from the beginning had been the Shangri-La hotel, a massive structure near Orchard Road that could be heavily secured while also providing an ornate setting. The hotel hosted a historic summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou in 2015.
US officials, led by Joe Hagin, the deputy White House chief of staff for operations, negotiated with a North Korean delegation last week to determine the location and time for the summit. Security had been a chief concern for the North Koreans during the discussions, sources told CNN.
The meetings often proceeded at a painstaking pace. North Korean officials are “sensitive to being dictated to,” one source close to the talks said, and the Hagin-led team has taken pains to present ideas for the summit in a collaborative way.
“Even if you’re leading a horse to water, you have to do it in a way that is collaborative,” the source said.
North Korean officials in Singapore also needed to get sign-off on almost every detail with their superiors in Pyongyang, leading to one- or two-day intervals before they could reach an agreement on even minor logistical details, the source said.