President Donald Trump during talks in Hanoi with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is no longer expected to demand a full accounting of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, US media reported.
Dropping the demand may vindicate intelligence assessments that allegedly indicate North Korea does not intend to fully denuclearize, NBC reported on Wednesday citing current and former US officials.
Earlier the White House said Trump and Kim would have an agreement signing ceremony at the conclusion of the two-day summit which wraps up Thursday.
The US-North Korea summit in the Vietnamese capital kicked off on Wednesday with a brief meeting and a social dinner between the two leaders, during which they both expressed their determination for the success of the Hanoi summit.
Trump and Kim met for the first time last June in Singapore. After the first summit the US president said North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat to the United States. The first US-North Korean summit resulted in an agreement stipulating that Pyongyang would make efforts to promote the complete denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for the United States and South Korea freezing their military drills.