DPRK disputes Trump's account of talks breakdown

As the second DPRK-US summit ended without a joint agreement, DPRK officials held an impromptu middle-of-the-night news conference at a Hanoi hotel on Friday, offering an account that differed from Trump's.

"What we proposed was not the removal of all sanctions, but the partial removal," Foreign Minister said through an interpreter in Hanoi. He said the DPRK sought relief from five UN sanctions imposed in 2016 and 2017 that hurt the country’s economy, out of a total of 11, in exchange for disabling its main nuclear complex.

But on Thursday, Trump said at his own news conference after the two leaders’ meeting that Kim "wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that."

Ri said in exchange for partial sanctions relief, Pyongyang was willing to "permanently and completely dismantle all the nuclear material production facilities in the Yongbyon area, including plutonium and uranium in the presence of US experts."

In addition, Ri said Pyongyang would also put a "permanent halt" on nuclear and long-range missile testing, "in order to lower the concerns of the United States."

He said given the "current level of confidence" between the DPRK and the US, the proposal "was the biggest denuclearization measure we could take."

"However, during the meeting, the United States insisted that we should take one more step besides the dismantlement of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon area," Ri said. "Therefore, it became crystal clear that the United States was not ready to accept our proposal."