Washington: United States President Donald Trump said that the last meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended abruptly without reaching an agreement as Pyongyang was not “ready for a deal.”
Yonhap news agency quoted the US President while addressing the National Republican Congressional Committee on Tuesday, saying, “We had a walk. He wasn’t ready for a deal. That’s OK. Because we get along great.”
“He wasn’t ready. I told him, ‘You’re not ready for a deal.’ That’s the first time anybody has ever told him that and left. Never happened to him before,” Trump continued while adding, “Nobody’s ever left, but I said, ‘You’re not ready for a deal, but we’ll make a deal.’ We have a good relationship.”
Trump said that the Hanoi summit ended without any deal due to disagreements over the scope of North Korea’s denuclearisation and sanctions relief from the US
During their first summit in Singapore in June 2018, both Trump and Kim had agreed to “work towards” complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for the US security guarantees.
In order to break the impasse between North Korea and the US, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has offered to travel to Washington next week and hold talks with Trump on April 11.
Despite the breakdown of the second USA-North Korea summit, Trump had maintained that the relationship with the elusive state continues to be “good”.
On March 23, Trump removed additional “large-scale” US Treasury sanctions on North Korea in a bid to keep denuclearisation talks with North Korea on track.
