A chief nuclear strategist for decades, he authored the letter responding to Trump's decision to cancel the summit, saying North Korea was still willing "to sit down face-to-face with the USA and resolve issues anytime and in any format". As the site for their meeting, the two leaders have chosen one of Singapore's most luxurious hotels, the Capella Resort on Sentosa Island, a popular vacation spot off the southern tip of Singapore and home to Universal Studios Singapore. North Korea is seeking a security guarantee - possibly including a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War - and the removal of the U.S.'s nuclear umbrella protecting allies South Korea and Japan.

At issue is whether Kim would be willing to abandon a nuclear weapons program that has advanced rapidly in recent years, posing an increasing threat to the U.S. and its allies.

Some observers insist that it's the beginning of the complete denuclearisation of North Korea. It will be hard to live up to an April tweet in which he declared, "We haven't given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization", as if the ultimate deal were already done.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday's US-North Korea summit in Singapore, Mr Pompeo said preliminary talks between senior officials were continuing and moving quite rapidly. He had earlier been scheduled to leave on Wednesday.

Larry Kudlow, Trump's economic adviser, said Sunday on CNN that Trudeau's criticism had damaged Trump's prestige before the summit - and that's why Trump reacted so strongly.

Rodman is one of the few westerners to have met the North Korean leader on visits to the capital city of Pyongyang.

His first stop was a park with futuristic, tree-shaped installations, Gardens by the Bay, which also boasts the largest glass greenhouse and tallest indoor waterfall in the world.

Just a few months ago, Kim was an global pariah accused of ordering the killing of his uncle, a half-brother and scores of officials suspected of disloyalty.

"Wide-ranging and profound views on the issue of establishing new DPRK-US relations, the issue of building a permanent and durable peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, the issue of actualizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual concern" will be discussed, state-run KCNA reported early Monday.

"I think we're going to have a relationship, and it will start on June 12", Trump said at the time.

'F--- TRUMP': Robert De Niro bleeped at Tony Awards
When introducing Meryl Streep at the National Board of Review awards in January, he had some more choice words for Trump. He has played Special Counsel Robert Mueller on "SNL" recently in skits mocking Trump (played by Alec Baldwin).

Pompeo, who has traveled twice to Pyongyang to meet with Kim, told reporters Monday that North Korea has conveyed a willingness to denuclearize.

Andrew Kim was spotted by an Associated Press reporter Monday afternoon at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, where Trump is staying.

At the same time, he said, Kim will want to strengthen his relationships with powers such as China and Russian Federation to protect himself if the North does start dismantling the nuclear arsenal that it has long called its "treasured sword".

It's the "changed era" that is important.

"He was my counterpart in the South-North denuclearisation talks in 2011", he said.

The discussions between the United States and North Korea are ongoing and have moved more quickly than expected.

With two unreliable narrators in Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, how will Americans know what they actually said and agreed to with each other?

What's more, the official U.S. "memorandum of conversation", or "MemCom", of that meeting was written by the longtime U.S. Russian-to-English interpreter Dmitri Zarechnak, according to a copy of the document posted by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University. It brings the president more in line with veteran diplomats who have dealt with North Korea and know firsthand the difficulty of extracting verifiable concessions, and it helps ensure that - whatever happens on Tuesday - the president can tout it as a win. They believe Kim's engagement is aimed at getting the United States to ease the crippling sanctions that have squeezed the impoverished country. "It's about attitude, it's about willingness to get things done".

"The process could be doomed before it begins".

Iizuka's younger sister Yaeko Taguchi was abducted by North Korea when she was 22 years old.