Trump-Kim summit: North Korea wants Sanction Relief

North Korea has denied US President Donald Trump's claim that the country demanded total sanctions relief during a failed summit in Hanoi.

The North's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was speaking after talks between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended without agreement.

He said they asked only for partial sanctions relief in exchange for disabling its main nuclear complex.

The US insists this is not the case.

After their talks broke down, Mr Trump said Mr Kim had offered to dismantle all of the Yongbyon complex, the research and production facility at the heart of North Korea's nuclear programme, a significant proposal.

But in return Mr Kim wanted all sanctions lifted, something the US was not prepared to offer, Mr Trump added.

At a news conference after the summit, Mr Trump also said: "It was all about the sanctions. They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn't do that. Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times."


Following Mr Ri's comments, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who took part in the summit in Hanoi, reaffirmed that North Korea had "basically asked for full sanctions relief".

"They were pretty expansive with respect to what they're prepared to do at Yongbyon but there was still not complete clarity with respect to full scope of what it is they were prepared to offer," he told reporters.

The US was "anxious to get back to the table" to continue the talks, he added.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Later she wrote on Twitter: "President Obama refused to walk away from a bad deal with Iran. President [Trump] refuses to make the same mistake with Iran, North Korea, or anybody else. President Trump will always put the safety of the American people above politics."

Last month, Stephen Biegun, the US state department special representative for North Korea, said Pyongyang had committed in pre-summit talks to destroy all the nation's plutonium - and uranium-enrichment facilities, dependent on unspecified US measures in return.




Those unspecified US measures appear to have been complete sanctions relief, which Mr Trump would not offer. The US president also suggested in his news conference that Mr Kim had offered only the destruction of Yongbyon and not North Korea's entire nuclear apparatus.

Mr Trump said when he raised the issue of a second enrichment facility apart from Yongbyon, the North Korean delegation was "surprised" by what the US knew.

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