The pair signed what Trump called a “pretty comprehensive” and “very important” document, which spoke of “new US-DPRK relations” and committed Washington to “security guarantees”.

However, asked about denuclearisation — the crux of the summit, Trump said “we’re starting that process”, adding that it would begin “very, very quickly.”

For his part, Kim said the two Cold War foes had vowed to “leave the past behind”, pledging “the world will see a major change.”

The extraordinary summit — unthinkable only months ago — comes after the two nuclear-armed foes appeared on the verge of conflict late last year as they slung personal insults and Kim conducted nuclear and missile tests.

It was the first-ever meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries and was closely watched around the world.

“We’ll meet again,” Trump said after a signing ceremony, standing with Kim on the verandah where they first met. “We will meet many times.”

Trump said he “absolutely” would be willing to invite Kim — whose regime has been criticised for widespread human rights abuses — to the White House.

Earlier, the pair shared warm words and a historic handshake as they sought to confront a nuclear stand-off and enmity stretching back decades.

The two men shook hands for several seconds beneath the white-washed walls of an upscale hotel in neutral Singapore, Trump reaching out to touch the North Korean leader on his right shoulder.

As they sat down for their tete-a-tete, the US leader — who had said he would know “within the first minute” if a deal would be possible — predicted a “terrific relationship” with Kim.

In Seoul, South Korean President Moon Jae-in watched live on television, telling his ministers, he “could hardly sleep last night”.

After huddling for around 40 minutes, Trump and Kim were joined by senior advisors before breaking for lunch, where prawn cocktail, short-rib confit, soy-braised cod, and vanilla ice-cream were among the options.

The imagery for the high-stakes meeting was undoubtedly positive and Kim Yong-hyun, professor at Dongguk University in Seoul said: “The atmosphere of the summit looks very good.”

“It will be hard for this meeting to agree on specific deals but it carries considerable significance as a starting point,” he said.

– ‘Fire and fury’ –

Some analysts have warned the summit could produce more style than substance and Kelly Magsamen, a former top Pentagon Asia specialist, said: “We’ll see if Kim actually gives him anything more than superficial pleasantries and some good TV.”

Critics said the mere fact of the meeting meant Trump was legitimising Kim, who critics say runs a police state where human rights are routinely trampled.

“It’s a huge win for Kim Jong-un, who now — if nothing else — has the prestige and propaganda coup of meeting one-on-one with the president, while armed with a nuclear deterrent,” said Michael Kovrig, Crisis Group Senior Adviser for North East Asia.

The warm words and positive optics seemed a different era from when Trump was threatening to rain down “fire and fury” on Pyongyang and Kim attacked Trump as a “mentally deranged US dotard”, as he fired off a series of provocative weapons tests.

The Singapore summit is a potentially legacy-defining meeting for both men — comparable to president Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, or Ronald Reagan’s 1986 summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik.

But many agreements have been made in the past with North Korea that have later fallen apart.

On the table is the vexed question of denuclearisation — a word that means vastly different things to the two parties.

It remains far from clear that Pyongyang is willing to give up its nukes — weapons that the regime sees as its ultimate guarantee of survival.

And on the eve of the meeting, aides for both men were still scrambling to narrow yawning differences.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that the United States was willing to offer Pyongyang “unique” security guarantees if it denuclearises.

But the summit was more likely it is the start of a longer process of negotiation.

The discussions “will set the framework for the hard work that will follow”, Pompeo said.//AFP

The US president’s often-awkward handshakes with world leaders have sparked ridicule but many hope the one with Kim — the culmination of months of dramatic diplomacy — will lead to durable peace on the Korean peninsula.

Here are some other handshakes that shook the world:

The Koreas: Kim-Moon (2018)

On April 27, 2018, as the world held its breath, Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in reached across the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas and shook hands, the result of a remarkable thaw on the peninsula sparked by the Winter Olympics earlier this year.

Kim then stepped over the border for a summit with the South Korean president, making him the first leader from Pyongyang to set foot in the South since the Korean War ended in an armistice 65 years ago.

The two leaders agreed to pursue permanent peace and the complete denuclearisation of the divided Korean peninsula.

US, Cuba: Obama-Castro (2013)

At a memorial service for Nelson Mandela on December 10, 2013, US President Barack Obama made headlines when he shook hands with Cuba’s Raul Castro, the first such public greeting between leaders of the bitter neighbours after decades of enmity.

Within months there was a rapid thaw. Full diplomatic relations were restored in July 2015, followed by once-unthinkable steps to mend ties.

Obama visited Cuba in 2016 — the first such trip by an American president in 88 years.

Washington also relaxed its decades-long embargo on the communist-ruled island, and US airlines resumed direct flights to Havana in November 2016.

– N. Ireland: Elizabeth II-McGuinness (2012) –

In a landmark moment in the Northern Ireland peace process, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II met Martin McGuinness, a former top commander in the paramilitary Irish Republican Army during the many years of bloody hostilities with British forces.

The IRA wanted an end to British rule in the province, and for it to be merged with the Republic of Ireland. McGuinness later became one of the figures that helped negotiate an end to the violence.

Then a deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, McGuinness shook hands with the Queen during her June 27, 2012 visit to the province.

It was a gesture towards reconciliation that would once have been unimaginable, with McGuinness’ militant past and British security operations still a source of anger for many.

Israel, Palestinians: Arafat-Rabin (1993)

After months of secret negotiations in Norway, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stood in the South Lawn of the White House on September 13, 1993 to witness the signing of the Oslo Accords.

And then, in one of the most dramatic moments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with US president Bill Clinton’s arms stretched around both leaders, Arafat and Rabin shook hands.

The abortive process granted autonomy to the occupied Palestinian territories without creating a separate state.

Rabin was assassinated two years later by a Jewish extremist opposed to the peace process, which faltered in the years that followed.

Egypt, Israel: Sadat-Begin (1977)

In what is widely considered a major turning point in the recent history of the Middle East, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat arrived in Israel on November 19, 1977 on a historic visit — the first by an Arab head of state to the Jewish nation.

Images of Sadat shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during the visit were transmitted around the world. The visit led to the first Arab-Israel peace treaty and the formal end to the state of war that had existed between the two countries for 30 years.

Sadat paid for it with his life: he was assassinated by Islamists in 1981.

“Stock Market up almost 40% since the Election, with 7 Trillion Dollars of U.S. value built throughout the economy,” the president wrote in a series of pre-dawn tweets sent from Singapore.

“Lowest unemployment rate in many decades, with Black & Hispanic unemployment lowest in History, and Female unemployment lowest in 21 years. Highest confidence ever!”

Trump was due to meet Kim from 9:00 am Tuesday (0100 GMT) for a handshake and hours of meetings that were unthinkable just months ago.

“Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly….but in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!” he tweeted.

Pointing at the recent release of three American hostages and Pyongyang’s pledge to refrain from further nuclear or missile tests, Trump charged that “these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say!”

“We will be fine!” he tweeted.

The United States are demanding that North Korea denuclearize in exchange for security guarantees.

AN UNPRECEDENTED summit between the US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un here today was expected to produce a breakthrough, reflecting Washington’s firm stance to secure denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

“President Trump expected Chairman Kim would use this opportunity to change the trajectory of the relationship [with the US] and bring peace and prosperity to his country, said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a press briefing yesterday.

While reclusive North Korean leader Kim took time out yesterday in the city-state to prepare for the summit and made no public appearances, Trump had a working lunch with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Istana Presidential Palace.

At the lunch Trump was seen in a good mood as his Singapore host surprised him with a birthday cake, two days before his June 14 birthday.

“We’ve got a very interesting meeting, in particular tomorrow [Tuesday], and I just think it’s going to work out very nicely,” Trump told PM Lee during their talks over lunch, according to a pool report.

A handout photo taken by Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore on June 11, 2018 shows US President Donald Trump (R) shaking hands with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) following his visit to The Istana, the official residence of the prime minister, in Singapore.

Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan posted a picture of Trump with his birthday cake to his Facebook page.

Singaporean leaders stuck to their roles in hosting and facilitating the unprecedented summit, without intervening in the essence of the talks.

Trump thanked Lee for hosting the summit, expressed the continued US commitment to engage in the region and offered his support for Singapore’s chairing of Asean, the Singapore Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday after the working lunch.

In the meantime, senior US and North Korean officials had a long and serious meeting to prepare talking points to add meaningful substance to the vague denuclearisation promises of their leaders. The result of their three-hour discussion in a Singapore hotel remained unknown.

While Kim Jong-un has publicly said that Pyongyang would commit to denuclearisation, and repeated the same to Pompeo in a recent meeting, Washington sought a commitment for the regime to quickly carry out complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear programme – known in diplomatic terms as CVID.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is seen in a television monitor as speaks to the media about the upcoming meeting between US President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the J.W. Marriott in Singapore, 11 June 2018. (EPA Photo)

But CVID is a relatively new concept for Pyongyang and analysts earlier said that implementation of denuclearisation required hard negotiation, as that would require the regime to change its security strategy from relying on its nuclear power as a deterrence to instead having good relations and building trust with the US.

Kim might not want to give up the North’s nuclear programme, said senior fellow at the East-West Centre’s research programme, Denney Roy, in an earlier interview with The Nation. Kim might be meeting with Trump in the hope of achieving his more urgent needs – alleviating the threat of a US preventative military strike and getting at least some of the extensive economic sanctions lifted, said Roy.

While Washington could offer economic assistance to aid in the change related to CVID, the US would not want to ease up on the pressures and sanctions that appear to have helped bring Kim to the table, according to a Crisis Group report entitled “Deep Freeze and Beyond: Making the Trump-Kim Summit a Success” released yesterday.

Pompeo told the press briefing that the US would offer “unique” security guarantees if Pyongyang took the CVID. “We will take actions to provide them sufficient certainty that they can be comfortable that denuclearisation is not something that ends badly for them,” he said. “Just the opposite – that it leads to a brighter and better future for the North Korean people.”

Singaporean woman hold a picture of US President Donald J. Trump as she stand nearby the St Regis hotel, where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stay, in Singapore, 11 June 2018 (EPA Photo)

Singaporeans got excited yesterday as their country prepared to host the historic meeting. “Yes, why not, it’s very exciting, all over the world eyes are on Singapore now as two public enemies of the world are in town,” said a taxi driver when asked about his feelings about the summit. “I can’t believe it’s happening in Singapore,” he added.

The hosts allocated $20 million (Bt480 million) to hold the summit, which has given the city-state high-profile publicity. Some 2,500 journalists have registered to cover the event, although the chance of getting access to summit leaders is very slim. Key events are being reported on using a “media pooling” approach.

The authorities stepped up security control for the entire city, most notably Sentosa Island where meeting-venue the Capella hotel is located.

South Korean students unfurl a big reunification flag inscribed with a slogan that reads “We will make a peaceful Korean peninsula with our own hands” at Imjingak peace park near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Korea’s in the border city of Paju on June 11, 2018 (AFP Photo).

A television screen shows news reader Ri Chun Hee announcing the arrival of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Singapore ahead of his meeting with US president Donald Trump, during an evening bulletin in Pyongyang on June 11, 2018 (AFP Photo). 

In a statement on Monday, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) released a photofit of Tan, also known as Eric Tan, together with three others as those wanted to facilitate investigations in connection with 1MDB.

The other three are Tang Keng Chee (Casey Tang), 53, Geh Choh Heng, 47 and Loo Ai Swan (Jasmine Loo), 45.

Tan is known as the “mystery man” and is thought to be masquerading in another name.

The accounts were R.B. Coutts and Falcon Bank.  Tan has been a wanted man, together with Jho Low, since October 2016.

Tang, Geh and Loo were former employees of the scandal-riddled 1MDB. Tang was an investment executive and pioneer in 1MDB. Geh and Loo also worked in the firm.

Tang and Loo have been on the wanted list for a few years now, but this is the first time Geh’s name has surfaced.