US President Donald Trump urged North Korea's Kim Jong Un to go "all in" during their high-stakes nuclear negotiations but talks floundered amid differences over sanctions and the definition of "denuclearisation", a senior State Department official said Friday.
The two leaders travelled huge distances to Hanoi for a second summit over dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programme but the two-day meeting broke down suddenly with the two sides failing to agree on a joint statement as scheduled.
A senior administration official, who requested anonymity, said the North Koreans wanted "many, many billions of dollars in sanctions relief" but were "unwilling to impose a complete freeze on their weapons of mass destruction programmes".
Lifting the sanctions "would in effect put us in a position of subsidising the ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea," the official added. "The weapons themselves need to be on the table."
"The President in his discussions challenged the North Koreans to go bigger. The president encouraged Chairman Kim to go all in. And we were going to -- we were prepared to go all in as well," he said.
North Korea's foreign minister convened journalists from a handful of countries for a surprise midnight press conference in Hanoi to present Pyongyang's position that it had only requested partial sanctions relief.
In return -- and in what the minister Ri Yong Ho called a "realistic proposal" -- the North had offered to "permanently and completely dismantle all the nuclear production facilities in the Yongbyon area, in the presence of US experts".
But one of the problems was a precise definition of what is located at Yongbyon -- an enormous complex containing "more than 300 different separate facilities", the US official noted.
"What the North Koreans proposed to us was closing down a portion of the Yongbyon complex."
A further sticking point was the ever-thorny issue of an exact definition of "denuclearisation".
While Washington wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme, Pyongyang sees denuclearisation more broadly.
The North's view includes an end to sanctions and what it sees as US threats -- usually including the American military presence in South Korea, and sometimes in the wider region.
The official said the definition was extensively discussed at working-group level but "they haven't agreed to it".
Despite the chasms still separating the two sides, the official -- like his boss Trump -- sought to strike a positive tone.
"We're actually encouraged by where we're going," he said."
"We didn't get close enough at this summit but we're encouraged by the opportunities ahead of us."
Trump, Kim end summit abruptly but say dialogue still alive
Hanoi (AFP) Feb 28, 2019 - The United States and North Korea on Friday put forward starkly different accounts over the breakdown of a high-stakes summit in Hanoi but offered guarded hope that they could meet again.
After weeks of building expectations and with a signing ceremony ready to go, President Donald Trump abruptly ended his second-ever meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and declared a 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," Trump said before flying back to Washington.
In an exceptionally rare meeting with reporters, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho summoned the press in Hanoi at midnight and denied the White House account that Pyongyang was only seeking a complete deal.
North Korea had offered to "permanently and completely dismantle all the nuclear production facilities" at its main complex in Yongbyon if the US dropped sanctions "that hamper the civilian economy and the livelihood of our people", Ri said.
He warned that the North's stance was "invariable" and that its offer will "never change".
But North Korean state media -- which less than two years ago was branding Trump a "mentally deranged US dotard" -- offered a more conciliatory take, saying the summit had been "productive".
Kim and Trump "agreed to continue having productive talks to discuss the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the improvement of US-North Korea relations", the Korean Central News Agency said.
The North Koreans appeared to be thinking through their response to the often unpredictable Trump, who insisted that he could obtain a better deal.
"I'd much rather do it right than do it fast," Trump told reporters, reaffirming his "close relationship" with Kim.
"There's a warmth that we have and I hope that stays, I think it will."
Trump also said he hoped to see Kim again soon but offered no details.
- 'It will take a little while' -
The outcome in Hanoi fell far short of hopes that the meeting would build on the leaders' summit in Singapore in June, which marked a historic first but resulted only in a vague commitment to "work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".
Progress subsequently stalled, with the two sides disagreeing on what that means.
The US president has since frequently dangled the prospect of a brighter economic future for a nuclear-free North Korea, at one point tweeting there was "AWESOME" potential.
But it was not enough.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who accompanied Trump, said both sides "need to regroup" before agreeing to another meeting, adding: "My sense is it will take a little while."
Pompeo however also said "there's still a basis for believing that we can move forward".
Beyond the sub-par summit result, Trump came under fire at home for saying that Kim "didn't know" about the torture of an American college student jailed in the North.
Otto Warmbier, who was arrested for allegedly taking down a poster, returned home in 2017 in a coma and died soon afterward, with a US judge ruling that the 22-year-old had died from torture.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she thought there was "something wrong" with a US president choosing to believe "thugs" such as Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin over the US intelligence community.
- 'Major failure' -
With a table already prepared for a working lunch and signing ceremony, Trump moved up his final news conference by two hours as he and Kim left without any accord.
"This is a major failure," tweeted Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund peace foundation, saying it showed the limits of top-level summitry with "not enough time or staff" to work out a deal.
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).
Trump headed home, and Kim will stay on in Hanoi for a state visit.
The US leader placed calls from Air Force One to the leaders of US allies Japan and South Korea to discuss the summit, Sanders said.
Seoul said that Trump "expressed regret" to President Moon Jae-in, who helped arrange the summits, over not striking a deal with Kim.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longstanding hawk on North Korea, told reporters that he "fully supports President Trump's decision to make no easy compromise".
In China, North Korea's primary ally, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang voiced understanding, saying that "solving this problem is definitely not something that can be achieved overnight"
- 'Rocket man' -
As in Singapore, the two men put on a show of bonhomie in Vietnam -- a far cry from 2017, when Trump was mocking Kim as "rocket man" and threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests.
The two leaders, nearly 40 years apart in age, appeared to share jokes in front of reporters and indulged in a poolside stroll Thursday around the gardens of the luxury Metropole Hotel.
Before the summit, there was talk that there could be a political declaration ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which finished technically with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Trump's failure to clinch a deal paradoxically brought him praise within his Republican Party -- some members had privately fretted that he was too eager to seal a historic accord.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Trump "should be commended for his personal commitment to persuading Kim Jong Un to pursue a different path -- and for walking away when it became clear North Korea was not ready to commit enough to denuclearisation."
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Nuclear weapons on menu at Trump-Kim dinner
Hanoi (AFP) Feb 26, 2019
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un meet Wednesday in Hanoi for the second date in an unlikely friendship that the US president hopes will push North Korea's reclusive leader closer to reaching a deal on his nuclear arsenal. Trump touched down late Tuesday on Air Force One after flying half way around the world from Washington, while Kim arrived earlier, following a two-and-a-half-day train journey from Pyongyang. On completing their marathon trips, the protagonists of international diplomacy's most su ... read more
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