President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he expected North Korea to end its nuclear program, but he is in no rush and has no pressing time schedule for Pyongyang to ultimately denuclearise.
Almost a week before his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump said that if North Korea did not conduct any nuclear tests, then he was not under pressure to achieve one of his leading foreign policy goals – convincing the country to abandon nuclear weapons, Al Jazeera reported.
Trump said, his second meeting with Kim Jong Un on Feb 27 and 28 in Hanoi, Vietnam, would be exicting.
Trump said, “I look forward to being with Chairman Kim and I think a lot of things will come out of it. We had a tremendous first summit – it was really breaking the ice, but a lot of things came from that, including good relationships.”
Attention has been focused on whether Washington will offer to lift some economic sanctions on North Korea in return for it taking concrete steps towards denuclearisation.
On Tuesday, the US State Department said sanctions on North Korea would be maintained until Washington achieved final results of full verified denuclearisation.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump spoke with South Korean President Moon Jae-in about the summit. He plans to talk to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday.
Moon told Trump in the call that his country is willing to open economic engagement with North Korea as a “concession” if it will hasten Pyongyang’s denuclearisation, the South Korean president’s office said.
Trump met with Kim for the first time in Singapore in June 2018, reaching several consensuses which have led to the improvement of US- N Korea relations. (UNI)
