SINGAPORE: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to fly into Singapore’s Changi airport on Sunday ahead of a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump, a source involved in the planning of the trip said on Friday.
Pictures of US military aircraft at nearby Paya Lebar air base, including a white-topped helicopter commonly used for transporting high-ranking US officials, were published in a newspaper on Friday.
Talks between the leaders on June 12 are expected to center on ending the North’s nuclear weapons and missiles programmers in return for diplomatic and economic incentives.
Changi airport directed Reuters’ query to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. The Aviation Authority did not immediately have comment.
Neither delegation has made its travel plans public.
Media said Trump was likely to arrive at the Paya Lebar air base, where previous US presidents landed on visits to Singapore.
Since becoming the North’s leader in 2011, Kim has only taken one known overseas trip by air – to Dalian in China in early May – flying in his personal Ilyushin-62M jet and accompanied by a cargo plane.
Singapore is easily in the range of the Soviet-era narrow-body Il-62M aircraft which flies on four engines, but some media speculated that it may stop in China as a precaution since it was not frequently used in recent years for such a long distance.
