North Korean leader Kim Jong Un headed out of his locked-down hotel in Hanoi for official meetings with Vietnamese leaders a day after his summit breakdown with US President Donald Trum
By Associated Press Reporter
March 1 2019 9:09 AM
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un headed out of his locked-down hotel in Hanoi for official meetings with Vietnamese leaders a day after his summit breakdown with US President Donald Trump.
His talks with Mr Trump failed Thursday over a dispute on how much sanctions relief the US should give North Korea in return for nuclear disarmament steps.
Mr Trump said he walked away from his second summit with Kim Jong Un because Mr Kim demanded the US lift all of its sanctions, a claim that North Korea’s delegation called a rare news conference in the middle of the night to deny.
In Hanoi, President Trump held firm on America’s terms: Nothing short of real progress toward verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will result in sanctions relief. Tonight’s 1600 Daily: https://t.co/A68ueVC88upic.twitter.com/3PSM69cDQZ
Mr Trump’s much-anticipated meeting with Mr Kim, held in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, ended abruptly and without the two leaders signing any agreements.
Mr Trump spoke with reporters soon after the talks broke down and said the dispute over sanctions was the deal breaker.
“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” he said. “We had to walk away from that.”
Hours later, two senior members of the North’s delegation told reporters that was not what Mr Kim had demanded.
They insisted he had asked only for partial sanctions relief in exchange for shutting down the North’s main nuclear complex.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said the North was also ready to offer in writing a permanent halt of the country’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
