Trump and North Korea's Kim shake hands to kick off second summit

[February 27, 2019]  By Soyoung Kim and Jeff Mason

HANOI (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump met in Hanoi on Wednesday for their second summit, with the U.S. president rejecting any suggestion he was walking back on U.S. demands for North Korea's denuclearization.

Kim and Trump shook hands and smiled briefly in front of a row of their countries' flags at the Metropole hotel in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

Trump told reporters he thought the talks would be very successful, and asked if he was "walking back" on denuclearization, said "no".

At their historic first summit in Singapore last June, Trump and Kim pledged to work toward denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean peninsula. North and South Korea have been technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict, with the Americans backing the South, ended in a truce, not a treaty.

Asked if he would declare a formal end to the Korean War, which North Korea has long called for, Trump said: “We’ll see.”

In the run-up to this summit, Trump has indicated a more flexible stance, saying he was in no rush to secure North Korea's denuclearization. He repeated that on Wednesday, saying while some people believed the talks should be moving more quickly, he was satisfied.

Trump has held out the prospect of easing sanctions if North Korea does something "meaningful".

But some critics have said he appeared to be wavering on a long-standing U.S. demand for complete and irreversible denuclearization by North Korea, and risked squandering leverage if he gave away too much in the talks too quickly.

Kim said they had overcome obstacles to hold their summit.

"Now that we're meeting here again like this, I'm confident that there will be an excellent outcome that everyone welcomes, and I'll do my best to make it happen," Kim said.

Trump and Kim are scheduled to hold a 20-minute, one-on-one chat followed by a dinner with aides.

Trump will be accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Kim will be joined by his top envoy, Kim Yong Chol, and Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho.

On Thursday, the two leaders will hold "a series of back and forth" meetings, the White House said. The venue has not been announced.

Despite little progress on his goal of ridding North Korea of its weapons programmes, Trump appeared to be betting on his personal relationship with North Korea's young leader, and the economic incentive after 70 years of hostility between their countries.

"Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize," Trump said on Twitter ahead of the meeting.

"The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon - Very Interesting!"

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands before their one-on-one chat during the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

GOOD RELATIONS

Trump said late last year he and Kim "fell in love", and on the eve of his departure for the second summit said they had developed "a very, very good relationship".

Whether the bonhomie can move them beyond summit pageantry to substantive progress on eliminating Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal that threatens the United States is the question that will dominate the talks.

Trump and Kim's Singapore summit, the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, ended with great fanfare but little substance over how to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no sign North Korea will ever give up its entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it sees as its guarantee of national security. Analysts say it won't commit to significant disarmament unless punishing U.S.-led economic sanctions are eased.

The two sides have discussed specific and verifiable denuclearization measures, such as allowing inspectors to observe the dismantlement of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, U.S. and South Korean officials say.

U.S. concessions could include opening liaison offices, ending the war or clearing the way for inter-Korean projects.

Any deal will face scrutiny from American lawmakers and other skeptics who doubt North Korea is willing to give up the weapons.

For Trump, a deal that eases the North Korean threat could hand him a big foreign-policy achievement in the midst of domestic troubles.

While he is in Hanoi, his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen is testifying before U.S. congressional committees, with the president's business practices the main focus.

Cohen, in wide-ranging testimony he is due to deliver on Wednesday, refers to a comment Trump made to him about avoiding the U.S. military draft for the Vietnam War on medical grounds: "'You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam'," Cohen cited Trump as saying.

"I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now," Cohen said in a draft statement seen by Reuters.

Trump, responding to the statement on Twitter, said Cohen was lying to reduce his prison time. He declined to respond when a reporter asked him about Cohen later.
(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Jeff Mason in HANOI.; Editing by Robert Birsel and Lincoln Feast)

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