Here Are Nine Potential Locations for Trump-Kim Summit

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said five locations are under consideration for his planned meeting in “early June or before” with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump, who was speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday, didn’t identify the locations. But a person familiar with the talks said possibilities included Geneva and several venues in Asia and Southeast Asia, while adding that the list didn’t include Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul and Panmunjom -- the site of the Korean armistice signing where South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet Kim next week.

Sweden and Switzerland are among the places the White House is considering, according to people familiar with the matter. Listed below in alphabetical order are some potential meet-up spots:

Bangkok

The U.S. embassy in Thailand is one of its largest. Bangkok is also one of the few countries in Asia to host a North Korean embassy.

Geneva

The city in diplomatically-neutral Switzerland has hosted many high-level diplomatic meetings in the past, notably the 1955 Geneva Summit with leaders of the U.S., Soviet Union, U.K. and France. Kim also went to school in Switzerland.

Helsinki

A North Korean foreign ministry official Choe Kang Il visited Finland’s capital in March to attend meetings with delegations from the U.S. and South Korea after Trump accepted Kim’s invitation to meet.

Singapore

China’s President Xi Jinping chose Singapore for his historic meeting with Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. The city state has diplomatic relations with North Korea and the U.S.

Stockholm

Sweden has an embassy in Pyongyang and acts as the so-called "protecting power" or representative for the U.S. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho visited Stockholm in March. Sweden has often been used as a communications channel between North Korea and the U.S.

Oslo

The Norwegian capital was the location for a meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials in May 2017 that hammered out details for the release of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was brought back to the U.S. last year in a coma following his arrest on charges of stealing a propaganda poster. Warmbier died a week after returning home.

Prague

Kim Pyong Il, Kim Jong Un’s uncle, is North Korea’s ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Warsaw

North Korea has a spacious embassy in the Polish capital, which in July 2017 was the site of Trump’s first major public speech in Europe.

Ulaanbaatar

Mongolia borders Russia and China and has diplomatic relations with the U.S. and North Korea. It is also easily accessible by train from Pyongyang, which may be a consideration given recent reports that North Korea may not have a plane capable of flying to a distant location.

--With assistance from Adrian Leung Toluse Olorunnipa and Jennifer Jacobs

To contact the reporter on this story: David Tweed in Hong Kong at dtweed@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Andy Sharp, Colin Keatinge

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.