NORTH KOREA - WASHINGTON/SEOUL. Nearly one year after U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last met, North Korea has returned to conducting short-range missile tests and issuing harsh rhetoric, while Washington shows little interest in easing sanctions.
The two leaders’ last meeting - at the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas - did little to break the deadlock in denuclearisation talks.
This has led to bouts of increased tension, though Trump - who once derided Kim as “Little Rocket Man” - has largely downplayed Pyongyang’s actions.
Here is a timeline of those developments:
June 12, 2018:
A summit in Singapore represented the first time a sitting American president met with a North Korean leader, but the statement that came out of the meeting was light on specifics, opting instead for general commitments.
Since the summit, North Korea has shown no tangible signs of a willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons, and experts have said it is believed to have continued development of its arsenal. Washington, at the same time, has sought to keep sanctions intact, leading North Korea to accuse the United States of clinging to hostile policies.
Feb. 28, 2019:
A second summit between Trump and Kim in Vietnam collapsed over sanctions relief, raising questions about the future of denuclearisation diplomacy.
