US President Donald Trump has told reporters that he “had to walk away” from a historic Vietnam summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without reaching an agreement on nuclear disarmament.
Confusion reigned in Hanoi yesterday, after the scheduled end of the talks between the two leaders was moved forward by two hours and a planned joint signing ceremony was cancelled.
Optimism had been boosted prior to their meeting when Kim said he would not be at the summit if he were not prepared to denuclearise.
But Trump told media today that Pyongyang had pushed for all sanctions against the country to be lifted in return for closing down its nuclear facilities.
“They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,” the president said, adding: “Sometimes you have to walk.”
“They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that. We had to walk away from that.”
However, Trump dismissed any notion of increasing sanctions against Pyongyang, pointing to the impact that such a move would have on North Korean citizens.
“There are people in North Korea that have to live also… I would say my whole attitude changed a lot because I got to know Chairman Kim very well,” he said.
He also stressed that his relationship with Kim remained “very strong” and hinted that talks could resume at a later date.
“I want to keep the relationship – we’ll see what happens over the next period of time,” the president said.
Meanwhile, the North Korean dictator “remained more vague on whether he would be able to strike a deal with Trump”, reports Euronews.