Trump says unwilling to give up N Korea sanctions unless denuclearisation program agreed

"They wanted to denuke certain areas and I wanted everything ... I did not want to give up the sanctions unless we had a real program," Trump said when asked about sticking points in his talks with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Hanoi.

Trump said that the North Korean delegation was not ready for such developments.

They are not ready for that and I understand that fully. I really do. They spent a lot of time building it … I wanted them to denuke and they would not do the full [denuclearization]. They wanted to do some. And I guess I lot of people would have said ‘it’s a great start.’ But I just did not feel it was right," Trump explained.
The president noted that the relations between Washington and Pyongyang were "very good" but both he and Kim were not satisfied with the results of the talks that were held in the Vietnamese capital on Wednesday and Thursday and finished abruptly without a deal.

Trump suggested "it was not the right time" to sign an agreement, noting, however, that both sides were "working toward something."

The president reiterated that the agreement on the complete verified denuclearization of North Korea was a much tougher deal to make, but "that’s the deal we should have." However, Trump did not rule out that such a deal might not be reached.

At their first summit in Singapore last June, Trump and Kim expressed in a joint statement their commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.