The White House has released a commemorative coin featuring the likeness of President Donald Trump and North Korea supreme leader Kim Jong Un, ahead of their landmark meeting next month in Singapore.
The White House Communications Agency launched the "trip coin" Monday, according to NBC News' Peter Alexander, who shared images of its front and back on Twitter. The front side shows busts of "President Donald J. Trump" and "Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un" in front of their respective national flags and the words "peace talks." On the reverse side, the White House and Air Force One are seen between the lines "Visit of the President" and "Donald J. Trump."
The meeting, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore will be the first ever between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean supreme leader.
Less than a month to Trump-Kim summit, White House Communications Agency (WHCA) releases its “trip coin.”
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) May 21, 2018
This is #74 of 250 made. pic.twitter.com/UTEJg1GyWv
The White House has released coins in the past, including one for Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia. The latest one comes amid a rare detente between North Korea and U.S.-backed South Korea, but the fragile dialogue between the longtime rivals has been apparently suspended as South Korea pursued air drills with the U.S.
North Korea also threatened to cancel the summit with Trump, but U.S. officials cited Friday by The Wall Street Journal indicated that the U.S. agreed not to send nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the joint exercise with South Korea because Pyongyang considers them provocative.
Related: North Korea Says U.S. 'Has Not Given Up' Plans to Rule World With Military Budget Targeting Russia and China
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has twice visited Kim already and the Trump administration has expressed confidence that North Korea will agree to denuclearize in exchange for peace, but the terms of such an arrangement have not been made clear by either side. North Korea deems its nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles to be vital for deterring a potential U.S. invasion.
North Korea has rejected a so-called "Libya model" championed by national security adviser John Bolton. Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi forfeited his nuclear program in 2003, the same year the U.S. invaded Iraq, in exchange for better relations with the West. In 2011, he was overthrown and killed by a NATO-backed rebellion. His "miserable fate," along with that of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was referenced in a strongly worded statement Tuesday by North Korean First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan.
"If the Trump administration takes an approach to the DPRK-U.S. summit with sincerity for improved DPRK-U.S. relations, it will receive a deserved response from us," the statement read, according to the official Korean Central News Agency, using an acronym for North Korea's full title: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"However, if the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit," it added.
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