01 Feb 2019; AFP: A US negotiator called Thursday on North Korea to provide a detailed account of its weapons to seal a peace deal, saying President Donald Trump was ready to offer a future that includes diplomatic relations and economic aid.
Trump is set to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in around a month and said Thursday that he would announce the exact date and venue early next week.
"I think most of you know where the location is. I don't think it's a great secret," he told reporters at the White House.
Vietnam has offered to host the talks.
"We've made tremendous progress with North Korea," said Trump, whose June summit with Kim in Singapore was the first ever between leaders of the two countries that never formally ended the Korean War.
The meeting produced a document in which Kim pledged to work toward the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
As skeptics voice worry that Trump is overly eager to make a legacy-building deal and enjoy the spotlight of meeting the reclusive leader again, the US special representative on North Korea, Stephen Biegun, said the administration is "clear-eyed" and prepared for contingencies if talks fail.
On Tuesday Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities," an analysis counter to Trump's position that there is "a decent chance" of the North giving up its nuclear weapons.
Biegun painted an upbeat picture at ending decades of hostility despite repeated failures in the past, saying that Trump "is unconstrained by the assumptions of his predecessors."
"I have this perfect outcome moment where the last nuclear weapon leaves North Korea, the sanctions are lifted, the flag goes up in the embassy and the treaty is signed in the same hour," Biegun said at Stanford University.
"Now that's an ideal, I know, and these things are going to move haltingly along different courses. But they can also be mutually reinforcing," he said.
Preparing the summit, the State Department said Biegun would head Sunday to South Korea and also meet his North Korean counterpart.
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