Trump-Kim summit breaks down over sanctions

A summit between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended with no agreement after the US refused North Korean demands for sanctions relief, President Trump said.

“It was about the sanctions,” he told reporters after the talks ended. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that.”

The pair had been expected to announce progress on denuclearisation.

“Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times,” Mr Trump said.

Speaking at the news conference in Hanoi, Mr Trump said no plans had been made for a third summit.

The original White House programme for the day had planned for a “Joint Agreement Signing Ceremony” as well as a working lunch for the two leaders, but expectations were abruptly dashed with the cancellation of both.

According to Mr Trump, Mr Kim made a significant offer – to dismantle all of the Yongbyon complex, the research and production facility at the heart of North Korea’s nuclear programme. But in return Mr Kim wanted all sanctions on North Korea lifted, something the US was not prepared to offer.

There was also the question over the network of facilities that extend beyond Yongbyon. Last month, Stephen Biegun, the US State Department special representative for North Korea, said that North Korea had committed in pre-summit talks to destroy all of the nation’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities, dependent on unspecified US measures in return.

Yongbyon is North Korea’s only known source of plutonium but the country is believed to have at least two other facilities where uranium is enriched.

Those unspecified measures appear now to have been complete sanctions relief, and Mr Trump suggested in his news conference that Mr Kim offered only the destruction of Yongbyon and not North Korea’s entire nuclear apparatus.

The president said that when he raised the issue of a second enrichment facility apart from Yongbyon, the North Korean delegation was “surprised” by what the US knew.

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Source: BBC

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