Trump remains positive ahead of Kim summit
U.S. President Donald Trump hailed North Korea's "awesome" potential and said its leader, Kim Jong Un, wanted to do something great.
His comments came hours before they were due to meet to try to break a stalemate over the North's nuclear weapons.
Despite little progress on his goal of ridding North Korea of its weapons programmes, Trump appeared to be betting on his personal relationship with North Korea's young leader, and the economic incentive after 70 years of hostility between their countries.
"Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize," Trump said on Twitter, the morning after he arrived in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi for a second summit with Kim.
"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!"
He later said he was looking forward to the talks with Kim and hoped for success.
"He wants to do something great," Trump said.
Trump and Kim will meet at the Metropole hotel for a 20-minute, one-on-one chat followed by a dinner with aides, the White House said.
The elegant interior of the 118-year-old Metropole thronged with security and diplomatic personnel from both sides - some snapping pictures - as hotel staff set up tables in a hotel lounge bar.
On Thursday, the two leaders will hold "a series of back and forth" meetings, the White House said. The venue for those talks has not been announced.
Trump said late last year he and Kim "fell in love", and on the eve of his departure for the second summit said they had developed "a very, very good relationship".
Whether the bonhomie can move them beyond summit pageantry to substantive progress on eliminating Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal that threatens the United States is the question that will dominate the talks in Hanoi.
Trump met Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong at the grand, colonial-era presidential palace in the morning to oversee the formal signing of deals by Vietnamese carriers VietJet and Bamboo Airways with Boeing Co to buy 110 planes worth more than $15 billion.
He later met Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for lunch.
Published: by Radio NewsHub