DEAL BUT FEW SPECIFICS:

No nukes ‘very, very quickly’

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledged today to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, while Washington committed to provide security guarantees for its old enemy.

But a joint statement signed at the end of their historic summit in Singapore gave few details on how either goal would be achieved.

“President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK and Chairman Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” said the statement.

DPRK is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name of North Korea.

Trump said he expected the denuclearisation process to start “very, very quickly”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean officials would hold follow-up negotiations “at the earliest possible date”, the statement said.

Political analysts said the summit had yielded only symbolic results and nothing tangible.

“It is unclear if further negotiations will lead to the end goal of denuclearisation,” said Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow of Washington’s Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

The document also made no mention of the international sanctions that have crippled North Korea’s economy for pursuing its nuclear weapons programme.

Nor was there any reference to finally signing a peace treaty.

North Korea and the US were on opposite sides in the 1950-53 Korean War and are technically still at war, as the conflict, in which millions of people died, was concluded only with a truce.

Prisoners

But the joint statement did say the two sides had agreed to recovering the remains of prisoners of war and of those missing in action and repatriating them.

China, the third party to the truce, said it hoped North Korea and the US could reach a basic consensus on denuclearisation.

“At the same time, there needs to be a peace mechanism for the peninsula to resolve North Korea’s reasonable security concerns,” China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said. But Li Nan, senior researcher at Pangoal, a Beijing-based Chinese public policy think tank, said the meeting had only symbolic significance.

“It is too early to call it a turning point in North Korea-US relations,” Li said.

Before signing what Trump described as a “comprehensive” document, Kim said the two leaders had a historic meeting “and decided to leave the past behind. The world will see a major change”.

Trump said he had formed a “very special bond” with Kim and that relationship with North Korea would be very different.

“People are going to be very impressed and people are going to be very happy and we are going to take care of a very dangerous problem for the world,” Trump said.

Asked whether he would invite Kim to the White House, Trump said: “Absolutely, I will.”

He called Kim “very smart” and a “very worthy, very hard negotiator”.

“I learnt he’s a very talented man.

“I also learnt that he loves his country very much.”