History beckons for Trump and Kim today

Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are the unlikeliest of statesmen, but fate has thrown the US President and the North Korean Leader an opportunity granted to few historic figures -- together they can change the world.

Their summit in Singapore today -- which will begin with a one-on-one meeting, alongside translators -- represents an opening awaited for 70 years but that was unthinkable just months ago as they traded insults that sparked fears of a slide into nuclear war.

It could launch a process that could open the world’s last Cold War frontier, finally usher in a permanent peace to end the 1950-53 Korean war, reshape the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region and bring millions of North Koreans out of famine and isolation.

Nonetheless, the meltdown potentially raised political pressure on the President to come home from his summit with Kim with some genuine progress.

But if successful, the summit will be mentioned in the same breath as President Richard Nixon’s journey to meet Chinese patriarch Mao Zedong and the superpower talks between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that precipitated the end of the Soviet Union.

But it also represents a massive risk, since a failed summit could short-circuit diplomacy and bring the two countries closer to a disastrous military conflict. Each side enters the talks in a plush resort on Singapore’s Sentosa island expressing optimism. - CNN