North Korea has on Friday vowed further negotiations with the United States, as both the countries sought to hold further summits after both the leaders failed to reach to any agreement or nuclear deal in their second summit held in Hanoi, Vietnam.
According to news reports, the meeting was between the US President Donald Trump and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Un. Each sought to blame each other for the failure of their summit, with Trump saying Kim wanted the lifting of all US sanctions imposed over nuclear weapons programmes.
In a late-night media conference, the North Korean foreign minister said Pyongyang had only wanted some sanctions to be eased, and that the offer to close “all the nuclear production facilities” was the best deal Kim could ever offer.
However, N Korea’s KCNA news agency reported on Friday that the two leaders had a “constructive and candid exchange”.
It said that relations between both countries had been “characterized by mistrust and antagonism” for several decades, and there were “inevitable hardships and difficulties” on paths to forge a new relationship. It described the summit as “successful” and said Kim had promised the US president another encounter.
According to senior US officials, in the week leading up to the Hanoi summit, the North Koreans had demanded the lifting of effectively all the UN Security Council economic sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since March 2016.
“It was basically all the sanctions except for armaments,” a senior US official told reporters. “It tallies up to the tune of many, many billions of dollars.” Trump had urged Kim to go “all in” to secure a deal, the official said, adding Washington was willing to do so.