After much speculation and hope for cooperation ahead of the US-North Korea talks, the meeting between United States’ President, Donald Trump and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un, held in Vietnam, produced underwhelming results. While the North Korean leader was adamant on securing a lift on all US sanctions against his country, no deals came out of President Trump’s diplomatic efforts
United States’ President, Donald Trump met the North Korean Head of State, Kim Jong-un on Thursday in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. The meeting was a rather awaited event for determining the future of diplomatic cooperation between the United States and North Korea. The outcome, however, has not been as impactful. Whilst the Korean leader has demanded a complete lift of US sanctions imposed on the Asian nation, coming out of the summit, US President asserted, “Sometimes you have to walk… This was just one of those times”. Speculators who were rooting for an extension of cooperation vis-a-vis North Korea’s nuclear disarmament may have to wait a while longer.
Going into the second summit meeting, which lasted over four hours, on Thursday morning, President Trump said, “Speed is not important to me. What is important is that we do the right deal.” Talks ended with no agreements and according to a later statement by the US President, North Korea will shut down its main nuclear facility if the United States agrees to lift all sanctions against the country. President Trump clarified, “Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that.” He further added that North Korea was “willing to denuclearise a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that”.
This was followed by North Korean Foreign Minister, Ri Yong-ho’s press statement, justifying the countries demands. Contradicting President Trump’s earlier comments about the summit, the Foreign Minister asserted that North Korea had requested to lift some not all US sanctions. He informed the media, “Given the current level of trust between North Korea and the United States, this was the maximum step for denuclearisation we could offer.”
President Trump, however, has affirmed that his relationship with the North Korean leader is “very strong”. Additionally, the President has confirmed that the two nations will “continue to work” on reaching an ideal agreement on the denuclearisation of the Asian nation. With both its nuclear arsenals and facilities intact, the country is currently believed to have over thirty nuclear warheads. A denuclearisation deal in such a situation would wave off what has been referred to as the world’s primary nuclear threat.
