In a shocking move, President Trump and Kim Jong Un unexpectedly cancelled the Joint Press Conference (JPC) where the two leaders were scheduled to appear together leaving Trump to make a lone appearance.
After the collapse of the bilateral talks, President Trump also cancelled the working lunch for the two parties that was supposed to follow the JPC, a move that abruptly ended the summit two hours earlier than initially scheduled.
Both leaders then left the summit venue with no explanation other than the one offered by Trump during the solo press conference before leaving the summit venue, went straight to the airport, boarded Air Force One and headed straight back for DC.
Speaking to the media, President Trump couldn’t hide the disappointment after the collapse of the negotiations saying that he had no option but was forced to “walk away” after Kim Jong Un made unreasonable demands asking for a lifting of sanctions while giving little in return in terms of denuclearization.
“Sometimes you have to walk away,” he said with disappointment.
“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that. They were willing to de-nuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that.
“We had to walk away from that particular suggestion. We had to walk away from that.
“It was about sanctions. They wanted sanctions lifted but they weren’t willing to do an area that we wanted,” Trump told the media.
Despite the disappointment due to collapsed negotiations, President Trump nonetheless appeared to reserve a bit optimism particularly on Kim Jong Un and the possibility of a resumption of the highstakes talks and negotiations between the parties in the future as he left that door open.
Earlier in the day, Kim Jong Un had responded to a question by the media on denuclearization, a response that gave promise and a bit optimism on the talks.
“If I was not, I wouldn’t be here,” he said in response to whether or not he was interested in denuclearization at all.
While the North Korean delegation were willing to give a little in terms of denuclearization by dismantling the Yongboy nuclear facility, they were unwilling to concede on other nuclear facilities, forcing an end to the talks.
The collapse of the negotiations between the parties and the impromptu departure without any deal was indeed a blow to regional countries that had been optimistic about the summit and had anticipated some positive outcome at the end.
In the end, what remained were duelling diplomatic narratives as to what prompted the unexpected collapse of the talks leading to an impromptu departure from the summit by President Trump earlier than had been scheduled.
Copyright © 2019 Manyika Review. All Rights Reserved.
