WASHINGTON/HANOI – U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would be happy as long as North Korea maintains its pause on weapons testing, and he was in no rush to strike a nuclear deal with its leader, Kim Jong Un, when they hold their second summit this week.
The two leaders will meet in Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
The two leaders pledged to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but their vague agreement has produced few results and U.S. Democratic senators and security officials have warned Trump against cutting a deal that would do little to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
As Kim made his way across China by train for the summit, North Korean state media warned Trump on Sunday not to listen to U.S. critics who it said were disrupting efforts to improve ties.
Trump, speaking in Washington on the eve of his departure for Vietnam, said he believed he saw eye to eye with Kim and that they had developed “a very, very good relationship”.
“I’m not in a rush. I don’t want to rush anybody,” Trump said. (Reuters)
