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"We are continuing our historic effort for peace on the Korean Peninsula, our hostages have returned home, the nuclear tests have come to an end and there has been no missile launch for more than 15 months. I had not been elected President of the United States, we would be at the moment, in my opinion, in a major war with North Korea, "Trump said.
"There is still a lot of work to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is good, and President Kim and I will meet again on February 27 and 28 in Vietnam," he added.
The city in Vietnam is still under discussion but the contenders are Hanoi and Da Nang, according to a source familiar with the planning of the summit.
A source familiar with the negotiations said that North Korea was in favor of Hanoi, given the presence of its embbady. The United States favors Da Nang in light of the fact that a recent APEC summit took place in the city, which means that the United States has already conducted a comprehensive review.
Three weeks before the summit, follow-up meetings at the operational level will be necessary, especially since the denuclearization had not progressed during the last visit of a North Korean delegation to Washington in January.
North Koreans also said they would take denuclearization measures if the United States took corresponding measures, although Biegun said last week that one of its tasks would be to determine exactly what that meant.
"What I plan to discuss with my North Korean counterpart at our next round of meetings is an issue I intend to address," said Biegun. "On our side, we are ready to discuss many actions that can contribute to building trust between our two countries and at the same time advance the goals of the Singapore Summit to transform relations, to establish a permanent peace regime on the continent. peninsula and to carry out denuclearization. "
Biegun also reported that the United States may be willing to sign a treaty to end the Korean War.
"President Trump is ready to put an end to this war.It's over.It's done," Biegun said. "We are not going to invade North Korea, we are not trying to overthrow the North Korean regime."
Kim Eui-keum, spokesman for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told reporters on Wednesday that Seoul "welcomes" the decision to hold a second summit.
"Vietnam and the United States used to point their guns and knives against each other, but they became friends," Kim said.
"We hope that Vietnam will serve the background better than any other site for North Korea and the United States in order to write a new story."
Trump and Kim Jong Un It was held last year in Singapore, where the North Korean leader agreed to "work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula".
Trump later said the meeting eliminated any nuclear threat posed by North Korea, even though it had not provided any verifiable evidence that the rogue regime would end its nuclear program.
The biannual report states that North Korea's nuclear and missile program remains intact and that it makes no change in Pyongyang's behavior.
Last week, Trump congratulated North Korea for its "tremendous progress" in the negotiations and has regularly praised this progress as proof of his government's success in recent months.
"We have made a lot of progress on denuclearization and we are talking about many different things," he said on January 19.
But Trump's senior intelligence officials appeared to contradict this claim during a public hearing last week at Capitol Hill.
"We currently believe that North Korea will seek to maintain its capabilities in weapons of mbad destruction and that it is unlikely that it will completely abandon its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, as its leaders consider that Nuclear weapons are essential to the survival of the regime, "said National Intelligence Director Dan Coats.
His CIA counterpart, Gina Haspel, said at the same hearing that Pyongyang "is committed to developing a long-range missile with nuclear weapons that would pose a direct threat to the United States. ".
Yet Coats acknowledged at the time that North Korea seemed to have stopped its missile tests and nuclear tests for the time being, a development that Trump also presented as proof of diplomacy's success. Haspel indicated that Kim "valued the dialogue" with the United States and that they saw "indications" that it was "trying to chart a path for a better future" for the North people. Korean.
The deal could also always be canceled by Trump. It is unclear whether the President personally approved what his main negotiators agreed to. The National Security Council did not answer the question of whether Trump had signed the current agreement.
Trump has long publicly deplored the cost of deploying US troops around the world and has lobbied privately with his advisers over the possibility of withdrawing American forces from the country.
His leading national security advisers have repeatedly urged him not to do so and have emphasized the benefits of having US military bases in the region.
Richard Roth of CNN contributed to the reports.
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