All Eyes on Trump, Kim ahead of Summit in Hanoi

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Vietnam Tuesday for their second summit in less than a year, at which the American side will urge tangible steps by North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

“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-kilometer journey from his capital, Pyongyang, through China. He completed the last stretch from a border station to Hanoi by car.

The two leaders, who seemed to strike up a surprisingly warm relationship at their first summit in Singapore last June, will meet for a brief one-on-one conversation Wednesday evening, followed by a dinner, at which they will each be accompanied by two guests and interpreters, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

They will meet again Thursday, she said.

Their talks come eight months after the historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.

While much of that first meeting was about breaking the ice after decades of bitter animosity between their two countries, this time there will be pressure to move beyond a vaguely worded commitment by Kim to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Trump’s critics at home have warned him against cutting a deal that would do little to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, urging specific, verifiable North Korean action to abandon the nuclear weapons that threaten the United States.

In return, Kim would expect significant US concessions such as relief from punishing sanctions and a declaration that the 1950-53 Korean War is at last formally over.