Trump and Kim make history, but a longer and more difficult march lies ahead - CNN

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(CNN) —

With 20 steps over the military demarcation line at the Korean Demilitarized Zone Sunday, US President Donald Trump made history.

Trump became the first sitting US President to set foot on North Korean soil – a milestone Trump repeatedly touted in the hours that followed – and later in a triumphant tweet before departing South Korea on Air Force One, calling the occasion “a great honor.”

Those 20 steps were, indeed, a remarkable achievement. The fact that US officials and the notoriously rigid North Korean bureaucracy were able to pull together such a momentous meeting in around 24 hours, after Trump proposed the idea on Twitter, is a testament to the warm personal relationship that has developed over the last year between the two leaders.

It is also highly significant that the two were able to go beyond a simple two-minute handshake previewed earlier by the US President, and speak privately for nearly an hour – announcing they would form teams with the goal of resuming working level denuclearization talks by mid July.

But as the buzz wears off from a dizzying day of impromptu diplomacy, a far longer and more difficult march lies ahead to achieve the ultimate goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Denuclearization

It was noteworthy that Trump never once mentioned the word denuclearization on Sunday.

If the last year of stalled diplomacy with Pyongyang has proven anything, it’s that negotiations over North Korea’s prized nuclear arsenal are fraught with complexities and, at times, seemingly insurmountable difficulties.