Downplays North Korean denial

Trump downplays North Korean denial of negotiating terms

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed any dissonance between the United States and North Korea after nuclear talks with Kim Jong Un fell apart earlier this week without a deal.

“Great to be back from Vietnam, an amazing place,” Trump tweeted. “We had very substantive negotiations with Kim Jong Un - we know what they want and they know what we must have. Relationship very good, let’s see what happens!”

Competing versions of each side’s demands emerged after Thursday’s summit in Vietnam between the two leaders.

Trump said in a news conference afterward that Kim demanded complete relief from sanctions in exchange for incremental progress toward denuclearization, while North Korean representatives in a rare press conference later disputed that account.

"What we proposed was not the removal of all sanctions, but a partial removal," North Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ri Yong-ho, said Thursday, according to a translator. In exchange for partial sanctions relief, Ri said North Korea was willing to “permanently and completely” dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear material production facility "in the presence of U.S. experts."

Trump claimed Thursday that the destruction of the Yongbyon facility had been on the table, but said that the U.S. would have required much greater concessions from Kim in order to agree to lift all sanctions, and attributed that disagreement for his decision to walk away.

"They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn't give up all of the sanctions for that," he said.

But while Trump has insisted that the talks were productive, that he and Kim still have a pleasant relationship, and that there will likely be a third summit between the two men, North Korea also warned late Thursday that their offer this week wouldn’t sweeten any more.

“Given the current level of trust between North Korea and the United States, this was the maximum step for denuclearization we could offer,” Ri said, adding that “this kind of opportunity may never come again.”