Hours before his second meeting with North Korea's leader, U.S. President Donald Trump is urging his "friend" Kim Jong Un to abandon his nuclear weapons arsenal to ensure his country an "awesome" future.
In a tweet early Wednesday morning from Hanoi, President Trump said Kim should emulate the success enjoyed by Vietnam, its fellow communist nation, which he says is "thrivinglike few places on earth."
"The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un."
In a later tweet, the U.S. president said he and Kim "will try very hard to work something out on Denuclearization" and making the repressive regime "an Economic Powerhouse." Trump wrote that he believed China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- the four nations involved with the United States in previous failed talks to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons -- "will be very helpful!"
The two leaders are set to meet briefly Wednesday before having a social dinner along with two key aides and an interpreter from each side, with Trump accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Trump and Kim are holding more formal talks Thursday.
Before departing Washington, Trump voiced hope he would reach agreement on details of Kim's pledge to denuclearize his country.
Trump said on Twitter that without denuclearization, impoverished North Korea would endure "just more of the same." But Trump predicted, "Chairman Kim will make a wise decision!"
On Sunday night, Trump told U.S. state governors that he and Kim "see eye to eye, I believe, but you'll be seeing it more and more over the next couple of days. We're going to have, I think, a very interesting two and a half days in Vietnam. And we have a chance for the total denuclearization of an area of the world that was very dangerous."
Previous meeting
Trump and Kim met last June in Singapore, after which Trump declared, "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."
But as he meets with Kim in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, there is little concrete evidence that progress has been made to set the specific terms of North Korea's promised denuclearization.
Pompeo told the U.S. based cable news network CNN on Sunday "there is no change" in U.S. economic sanctions targeting North Korea until it agrees to "full verifiable denuclearization." He disputed Trump's claim, made after last June's Singapore summit with Kim, that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat.
Pompeo said the United States is "happy to make security assurances" for North Korea's survival as an independent state, to "make North Korea more like South Korea" as an economic power. He said the United States is offering North Korea an alternative to "becoming a pariah state."
But he acknowledged "we've got work to do" to reach an agreement on how and when Pyongyang would destroy its nuclear arsenal.
In the early months of his presidency, Trump said he would unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen” on North Korea for its threats against the U.S. and its allies.
But on Sunday, Trump tweeted, "Great relationship with Chairman Kim!"
U.S. intelligence officials remain skeptical that North Korea intends to follow through on Kim's Singapore pledge to denuclearize.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told a congressional panel last month that North Korea "has halted its provocative behavior" by refraining from missile tests and nuclear tests for more than a year. "As well, Kim Jong Un continues to demonstrate openness to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
Despite the end to testing, Coats said, "We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities."
White House correspondent Steve Herman, Seoul correspondent Bill Gallo and Ken Bredemeier contributed to this story.
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