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| North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, right, speaks as vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui looks on during a press conference at the Melia Hotel in Hanoi early Friday, following the abrupt end of the U.S.-North Korea summit Thursday. The North Korean official said that contrary to the claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier the same day, Pyongyang had offered to dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear plant in exchange for partial sanctions relief at the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump. / AFP-Yonhap |
Two sides present conflicting accounts of critical negotiations By Park Ji-won
Following an abrupt end to the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Thursday, it will likely be some time before further negotiations between the two will resume, experts said Friday. The summit ended without a written document after the two leaders failed to narrow their differences over Pyongyang's denuclearization.
"It appears that North Korea and the U.S. have large differences on the range of denuclearization, its procedures and corresponding measures. Sadly, it seems that it will take quite some time before the next talks between the two countries are held," Shin Beom-chul, a senior director of the research unit at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies told YTN during a talk show.
"In the negotiations, it seems that Trump presented satellite images to show the North's hidden nuclear facilities, and asked for them to be dismantled. Trump later said the North was surprised by the U.S. revelation. Based on that, the U.S. leader may have thought that the North did not have serious intentions to denuclearize," Shin said.
Citing Stephen Biegun, the special representative for North Korea who said that Kim had promised to dismantle all such facilities, not just the regime's well-known Yongbyon site, Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy told YTN, "Even though the North was willing to dismantle its Yongbyon site and do something more, it appears the U.S. had no intention to lift the sanctions that the North wanted, meaning the two had and have big differences over their terms of reference."
After the summit, North Korean and U.S. officials continue to exchange conflicting accounts about the negotiations on sanctions lifting as corresponding measures for the North's nuclear disarmament.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed what Trump said earlier, saying North Korea had "basically asked for full sanctions relief" during the summit.
"They were pretty expansive with respect to what they are prepared to do at Yongbyon but there was still not complete clarity with respect to the full scope of what it is they were prepared to offer," Pompeo told a news conference during a short stop in Manila.
He said the U.S. was "anxious to get back to the table to continue that conversation."
His remarks came after North Korean officials held a rare press conference Friday to rebut what Trump said about the failure of the summit. They emphasized that Kim didn't call for a full removal of sanctions, as Trump has claimed, but for partial relief in exchange for shutting the regime's main nuclear complex.
According to the Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho held a press conference in the middle of the night at the Melia Hotel in Hanoi, and unilaterally read a prepared statement saying the North did not ask for the complete lifting of sanctions, just a few out of the 11 U.N. rulings.
"We offered to permanently dismantle all nuclear material production facilities in Yongbyon, including plutonium and uranium, with the attendance of American experts and through joint operations of the two countries' technicians, if the U.S. lifted a portion of the U.N. sanctions, in other words, those disrupting the private economy and ordinary people's lives," Ri said.
Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui who was also present at the press conference answered reporters' inquiries and questioned Washington's attitude to the negotiations, saying, "I, someone who watched the summit right next to Kim, thought our leader didn't seem to understand the U.S.'s way of calculating the deal. Even though we proposed an unprecedented deal of dismantling the entire Yongbyon facility, the U.S. response was that it is difficult to lift sanctions on the private economy. I thought that Kim would lose his passion for a deal between North Korea and the U.S."
Meanwhile, North Korea state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), reported the summit results immediately Friday, and stressed the two countries had deepened their "mutual respect and trust," while expressing hopes over future talks with the U.S. It added that the two leaders agreed on the importance of transforming hostile relations between the two countries which have lasted for decades, into something else. However, it did not mention that Kim and Trump failed to sign an agreement. It also didn't state that the two leaders canceled their planned lunch, Thursday.
The Rodong Sinmun echoed the KCNA's view and said the two leaders promised to continue to talk to improve on the discussions in Hanoi and work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
