
Bloomberg
US President Donald Trump gave North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a list of demands that included a call for handing over nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the US in their talks in Hanoi last month, Reuters reported, citing the document.
Trump handed Kim the piece of paper stating the US position at their meeting in Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel on February 28, according to the news agency. This was the first time that Trump had explicitly defined directly to Kim what he meant by denuclearisation, Reuters reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the discussions. The document may help explain why the summit collapsed without a complete account, Reuters said.
Trump abruptly ended his second summit with Kim after the president said the North Korean leader had asked for all US sanctions to be lifted in exchange for the dismantling of the country’s main nuclear facility. Each side has blamed the other, with the US saying North Korea demanded too much sanctions relief and Pyongyang faulting Washington for rejecting its promises to reduce its nuclear programme.
Trump told reporters he has a good relationship with Kim and didn’t think additional sanctions on North Korea were needed. “It doesn’t mean I don’t put them on later, I just didn’t think additional sanctions at this time were necessary,†he said.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet Trump on April 11 in a bid to get North Korean nuclear talks back on track. Moon has come under fire at home from the opposition for accepting the North Korean leader’s disarmament pledges. He also faces pressure from across the peninsula, with the Kim regime withdrawing staff from a new joint liaison office last week and criticising the south as “cowardly†for backing the US stance against easing sanctions.
Moon to meet Trump over North Korea nuclear talks
Bloomberg
South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet US President Donald Trump next month in a bid to get North Korean nuclear talks back on track after a breakdown in the discussions he helped broker led to a slip in his support rate.
Moon, a long-time advocate of reconciliation with North Korea, will meet Trump at the White House on April 11, one of his spokesman said. It will be Moon’s first meeting with Trump since the US president abruptly halted his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on February 28, setting back diplomacy to
end Pyongyang’s atomic
ambitions.
About a month after the summit collapse, Moon’s presidential approval rating hit a record low of 43 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll released. Respondents criticised him for his policies on the domestic economy and his diplomacy with North Korea, according to Gallup Korea. Moon and Trump will “thoroughly discuss how to cooperate for permanent peace in the Korean peninsula through denuclearisation,†presidential spokesman Yoon Do-han said.