Trump, Kim confront North Korea’s nuke plans
HANOI, Vietnam (AP/Reuters) – With nervous world capitals looking on, President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un begin their second nuclear summit with a one-on-one discussion and an intimate dinner as hard questions swirl about what the American president will demand and Pyongyang might be willing to give up.
The two leaders and their aides encamped in Hanoi after long journeys by plane, train and automobile – Trump on Air Force One, Kim in an armored railcar and limousine – for two days of talks addressing perhaps the world’s biggest security challenge: Kim’s nuclear program that stands on the verge of realistically threatening targets around the planet.
“Just arrived in Vietnam,” he wrote in a Twitter post. “Thank you to all of the people for the great reception in Hanoi. Tremendous crowds, and so much love!”
Kim arrived by train early in the day after a three-day, 3,000-km (1,850-mile) trip from his capital, Pyongyang, through China. He completed the last stretch from a border station to Hanoi by car.
Trump was opening his visit in morning meetings with Vietnam’s president and prime minister before turning his attention to Kim. Official greetings with the normally reclusive leader will give way to a short one-on-one discussion before what’s being described as a social dinner with an exclusive guest list. The White House said Trump will be joined at the dinner by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Kim, too, will have two aides with him, and there will be translators for each side.
Trump and Kim will have a series of additional official meetings Thursday.
Kim, who arrived in Hanoi first, spent Tuesday traveling around the Vietnamese capital in his limousine. With a squad of bodyguards in tow, he visited sections of Hanoi, including his nation’s embassy where a loud cheer went up as he entered the compound.
As host, Vietnam is eager to show off its huge economic and development improvements since the destruction of the Vietnam War. But the country also tolerates no dissent and is able to provide the kind of firm hand not allowed by more democratic potential hosts.
Trump arrived late Tuesday after a 20-hour trip that included refueling stops in England and Qatar. He shook hands with dignitaries on a red carpet flanked by Vietnamese troops in crisp white uniforms. The route to his hotel was decorated with American, North Korean and Vietnamese flags, and adults and children peered out upper-floor windows holding up cellphones to capture his arrival.
Kim’s journey to the summit, though shorter in distance, was even more protracted. He took a nearly 70-hour train ride through southern China and then traveled from a Vietnamese border town in his limousine. Hours ahead of his border crossing at Dong Dang, footage from Japanese TV network TBS showed Kim taking a pre-dawn smoke break at a train station in China. A woman who appeared to be his sister, Kim Yo Jong, held a crystal ashtray at the ready.
North Korean officials engaged in working-level talks for the summit briefed Kim after he arrived, the North’s state news agency, KCNA, said on Wednesday.
At the Melia hotel, Kim “heard concrete details on the pattern of engagement between working-level delegations,” KCNA said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Visiting the North Korean embassy in Vietnam, Kim urged staff there to strengthen two-way ties in line with the needs of the times, KCNA added.
Trump said before leaving Washington it would be “a very tremendous summit” and stressed the benefits to North Korea if it gave up its nuclear weapons.
“With complete denuclearization, North Korea will rapidly become an economic powerhouse,” he said. “Without it, just more of the same. Chairman Kim will make a wise decision!”