Author: Choe Sang-Hun / Source: New York Times

Doug Mills/The New York Times
SEOUL, South Korea — President Trump arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday to discuss denuclearization with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, capping off months of threats and weapons tests, recriminations and rapprochements.
As the men prepared to meet for the second time in eight months, their avowed goal of achieving a lasting peace and “complete denuclearization” remained elusive, but the once-imminent threat of war felt even more removed.
Fear of war gripped the Korean Peninsula in 2017 after a series of North Korean missile tests prompted Mr. Trump to threaten that country with “.” Mr. Kim responded with what appeared to be a successful test of a hydrogen bomb and launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that it said was powerful enough to reach the continental United States.
After the two leaders met in June, tensions eased dramatically — the North stopped testing weapons, and the United States halted military exercises with the South. But the leaders did not iron out a clear path to denuclearization.
A vaguely worded agreement
After meeting Mr. Kim in Singapore, Mr. Trump said he “fell in love” with the North Korean leader and vowed to secure a “bright future” for the North, should it disarm.
Despite the fanfare, the meeting yielded only a vaguely worded joint statement composed of four broad agreements:
• The United States and North Korea would establish “new” relations.
• They would “build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”
• North Korea would “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
• And North Korea and the United States would recover the remains of American soldiers killed in the North during the Korean War.
The sticking points
North Korea returned the remains of what were believed to be 55 American servicemen killed in combat between 1950 and 1953. But there has been little progress toward the goal of denuclearization.
The negotiators have faced the same thorny issues that have doomed all previous attempts at ridding the North of its nuclear weapons.
What is “denuclearization”?
The United States and North Korea have yet to agree on what “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” entails.
Washington wants the “final, fully verifiable” dismantlement of all of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, fissile materials and production facilities. But…
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