Trump-Kim summit: US president blames failure of talks on North Korea's demand for sanctions to be dropped
Follow the latest updates on the historic meeting
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have cut short their talks in Hanoi, Vietnam and skipped a scheduled lunch event.
The White House confirmed the summit had ended with “no agreement reached” as the leaders headed back to their respective hotels.
The US president talks broke down over North Korea’s demands on US-led sanctions.
“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,” he told reporters. “Sometimes you have to walk.”
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said negotiations would continue at a future date.
Several Democrats came out acknowledging Mr Trump’s decision to walk away without a deal was the right move in this situation. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said walking away with no deal was better than agreeing to a bad deal, before adding that it was “the result of a poorly planned strategy.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed similar statements, citing his concerns about the likelihood of a bad deal forming out of the summit.
“A deal that fell short of complete denuclearization would have only made North Korea stronger & the world less safe,” Mr Schumer said.
After the summit, Mr Trump also defended Mr Kim over the tragic death of American college student Otto Warmbier, who was jailed in North Korea in December 2015 for attempting to steal propaganda material during an organised tour.The president said he does not believe the autocratic leader was aware of Mr Warmbier’s condition in the North Korean hard labour prison camp.
"He tells me he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Mr Trump said.
After two years of imprisonment, North Korean authorities returned Mr Warbier to the US in a coma in July 2017. A few days later, the 22-year-old died in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman criticised the American president’s defense of Mr Kim.
“I’m very concerned that the President didn’t seem to be all that concerned about the murder of Otto Warmbier from Cincinnati,” Mr Brown told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t know how he says he likes the dictator of NK so much.”
Mr Portman insists that Mr Trump and the American people must remember Mr Warmbier and that “we should never let North Korea off the hook for what they did to him."
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Mike Pompeo contradicted Donald Trump after the president claimed North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat”.
The secretary of state said Pyongyang still posed a risk in spite of the president’s previous claim which followed his first meeting with Kim Jong-un. On that occasion Mr Trump tweeted: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience.”
But when asked on CNN’s State of the Union programme on Sunday if he believed North Korea did still pose a nuclear threat, Mr Pompeo said: “Yes.”
CNN’s Will Ripley adds a thoughtful analysis to the drama surrounding the logistical nightmare of last-minute changes surrounding Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s second summit below, in which he notes the North Korean regime leader has been “calling the shots,” from choosing to travel by train instead of flying, to the abrupt changes in their meeting place this week:
Vietnamese authorities reprimanded two impersonators posing as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump.
The two impersonators have gone viral across social media ahead of the two leaders’ second summit together. But on Friday, one of the impersonators named Howard X — who is based in Hong Kong — published an account of an exchange he had with local officials about the impersonations.
“They then said that this was a very sensitive time in the city due to the Trump/Kim summit and that our impersonation was causing a ‘disturbance’ and ... suggested that we do not do the impersonation in public for the duration of our stay as these presidents have many enemies and that it was for our own safety,” he wrote on Facebook.
North Korea is working to ensure its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities cannot be destroyed by military strikes, UN monitors have said.
The report comes ahead of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's second denuclearisation summit.
The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe will be taking over the live blog shortly — here’s his piece discussing what would be a “win-win” scenario for both the United States and North Korea as Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un prepare to meet on Wednesday for their second summit, this time in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Here's the White House press corps report following the US president's motorcade to his hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam before a leisurely night without any scheduled meetings, via AP:
Donald Trump's motorcade sailed through the empty Hanoi streets Tuesday night, crossing a bridge decorated with flags from the United States, North Korea and Vietnam. But as he drew near the city center, crowds were gathered on the streets with many holding up phones as he drove by. Other people looked out from second and third story windows.
Mr Trump is in Vietnam for his second summit with Kim Jong Un. The two men first met last June in Singapore, a summit that was long on historic pageantry but short in any enforceable agreements for North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said his country wanted to make sure US and North Korean leaders had a productive summit.
“For the peace of the world, for a connected and developed world, let's shake hands. We shall develop together and contribute to global stability,” he told CNN.
Mr Trump has tweeted for the first time this morning:
Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize. 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!
President Trump and Kim Jong Un are expected to meet for the first time in Vietnam for dinner on Wednesday night, local time, according to CNN.
But the US leader will first sit down with his hosts earlier in the day for lunch, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and President Nguyen Phu Trong.
Trump will hold a bilateral meeting with President Nguyen before lunch, and then meet with the prime minister afterwards.
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