Hanoi [Vietnam]: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday held a meeting with Vietnam’s President Nguyen Phu Trong and thanked the country’s leadership for agreeing to host the second US-North Korea Summit.
Talking to the media after the meeting, he promoted the idea of a prosperous North Korea by citing the “good example” of Communist Vietnam.
“We both felt very good about having this very important Summit in Vietnam because you really are a good example of what can happen,” CNN quoted Trump as saying. He also said that he is “very proud” of what Vietnam had accomplished economically. He later met Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Earlier, the Vietnam Prime Minister asserted that the US and North Korea should reach an agreement for the “peace of the world”.
“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 in an exclusive interview.
“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,” tweeted Trump.
According to CNN, Trump chose Hanoi for the Summit to show Kim that once enemy could befriend the US after it mends its ways. During the height of the Vietnam war in the 1950s, America’s B-52 military aircraft had carried out heavy bombing in Hanoi. However, the city reinvented itself after the war and developed at a fast rate. Now it has a population of more than 7 million. North Korea, which is one of the world’s poorest countries, has no other options than to accept Trump’s proposal, according to CNN.
The US has reinforced that sanctions would only be eased once full denuclearisation is achieved by Pyongyang – a stand which the US stuck to even with the second Summit drawing near. Unlike the last Summit in Singapore, Trump and Kim are expected to address a joint press conference after the meeting which is scheduled for today and tomorrow.