Hanoi – United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday hailed North Korea’s “awesome” potential and said leader Kim Jong Un wanted to do something great.
Trump said this hours before they were due to meet in Vietnam to try to break a stalemate over the North’s nuclear weapons.
In spite of 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, the morning after he arrived in
Hanoi for a second summit with Kim.
“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!”
He later said he was looking forward to the talks with Kim.
“He wants to do something great,” he said.
Trump and Kim will meet at the Metropole hotel, one-on-one chat followed by a dinner with aides, the White House said.
Trump would 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.
The elegant interior of the 118-year-old Metropole thronged with security and diplomatic personnel from both sides – some snapping pictures – as hotel staff set up tables in a hotel lounge bar.
On Thursday, the two leaders will hold “a series of back and forth”
meetings, the White House said. The venue has not been announced.
Trump said late 2018 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 U.S. is the question that will dominate the talks.
Trump met Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong at the grand, colonial-era presidential palace and they affirmed the need for progress towards final, fully verified denuclearisation by North Korea, Pompeo said on Twitter.
The two presidents also presided over the formal signing of deals by Vietnamese carriers VietJet and Bamboo Airways with Boeing Co to buy 110 planes worth more than 15 billion dollars.
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.