North Korean leader appears to be pleased with outcome of Trump’s failed nuclear talks
NORTH KOREAN leader Kim Jong-un smiled broadly as he strode down a red carpet with Vietnam’s president yesterday, a day after the breakdown of his summit with US President Donald Trump
With Mr Trump back in Washington, and both countries spinning their version of what happened, Mr Kim seemed confident and poised he stepped out of his armoured car and embraced President Nguyen Phu Trong.
On Saturday he is expected to be driven back to the border with China where he will board his armoured train for a 60-plus-hour trip back to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
Talks between Mr Kim and Mr Trump broke down on Thursday, the second day of their two-day summit, in a dispute over how much sanctions relief Washington should provide Pyongyang in return for limited nuclear disarmament.
Despite a senior North Korean official’s suggestion that Mr Kim may have “lost the will” for diplomacy, the North Korean leader seems to have emerged from the diplomatic wreckage as a winner.
Mr Kim stood shoulder-toshoulder with Mr Trump at the summit and answered questions with humour and ease.
And, crucially for his image at home, he stood firm on his demands on sanctions imposed over a nuclear programme North Korea says it built in the face of unrelenting US hostility.
State-controlled media were already busy portraying the summit as a victory.
They said Mr Kim and Mr Trump “appreciated that the second meeting in Hanoi offered an important occasion for deepening mutual respect and trust and putting the relations between the two countries on a new stage”.
North Korea said it had asked for partial sanctions relief in return for closing its main nuclear site at Yongbyon, an important nuclear-fuel production facility but not the only one in the North.
The United States said that North Korea wanted billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for only partial dismantlement of Yongbyon, and demanded the North scrap more of its nuclear programme for such a high level of concessions.