Top Official Warns Kim Rethinking Denuclearization Talks with Trump

“I have a feeling that Chairman Kim may have lost the will (to continue) North Korea-US dealings," Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency on Friday.

"It's my personal feeling," she added.

“I think about whether [we] should continue talks," she noted, questioning the need to continue them after Trump said Thursday that he had to walk away from the meeting with Kim in Hanoi.

The much-anticipated second summit between Trump and Kim was cut short on Thursday, with both leaders leaving Vietnam early before an expected signing ceremony. The White House announced that no deal was reached during the summit in Hanoi.

While Trump stressed that during talks with Kim, they had failed to reach an agreement due to North Korean demands to lift sanctions, Pyongyang contradicted the US leader’s assertion, stating that it had expressed readiness to the Washington during the talks to fully dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for a partial removal of sanctions.

After their first face-to-face meeting in Singapore last June, which took place after a historic inter-Korean summit and Kim’s talks with Xi Jinping in China, the US and North Korean leaders agreed to work towards the denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for sanctions relief and security guarantees.

But, US-North Korea talks for a denuclearization deal appear to have stalled, in part due to disagreements over the timing of sanctions relief. While Pyongyang has since stopped testing ballistic missiles or nuclear bombs, the Americans continue to insist the country's nuclear program must be fully dismantled before they deliver on their part of the deal. Also, North Korea is demanding a solid guarantee of its security and the removal of Washington’s nuclear umbrella protecting allies South Korea and Japan.

North Korea has also denounced the US administration for stepping up sanctions and pressure on the country, warning that disarming Pyongyang could be blocked forever. North Korean authorities have also complained about continued US and UN sanctions, calling them a “source of mistrust”.

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