Trump ‘walks’ as North Korea talks end

The US-North Korea nuclear summit in Hanoi ended abruptly without a deal yesterday, with President Donald Trump saying he had decided to “walk” in the face of Kim Jong Un’s demands to drop sanctions. The much-anticipated second meeting between the two leaders was supposed to build on their historic first summit in Singapore, but they failed to sign a joint statement as initially scheduled and the talks ended in deadlock. “Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times,” an unusually downbeat Trump told reporters.

“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that,” said. But Trump insisted he was “optimistic that the progress we made” before and during the summit left them “in position to have a really good outcome” in the future. “I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” he added. He noted Kim had vowed not to resume nuclear or ballistic missile testing -- something he previously identified as a yardstick for success -- but said a third summit with the Pyongyang strongman was not on the cards so far, despite reiterating their “close relationship”.

“We just like each other... there’s a warmth that we have and I hope that stays, I think it will,” said Trump. Trump flew around the world for the meeting and Kim undertook a mammoth two-and-a-half-day trek through China in his olive green train, travelling 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles). At first the smiles and bonhomie from Singapore ran on into their second date in Hanoi as Trump touted the “special relationship” between the two, although concrete statements were vague.

The US president frequently dangled the prospect of a brighter economic future for a nuclear-free North Korea, at one point saying there was “AWESOME” potential. From the outset, he had appeared to downplay expectations of an immediate breakthrough in nuclear talks, saying he was in “no rush” to clinch a rapid deal and was content if a pause in missile testing continued. In Singapore the two signed a vague document in which Kim pledged to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.