Trump-Kim summit will build more trust

As Democratic People's Republic of Korea top leader Kim Jong-un reached Vietnam on Tuesday for his summit with United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday and Thursday, the international community hopes the two leaders would make substantial progress in the Korean Peninsula denuclearization process.

Although the establishment of a mutual-trust building mechanism would be a promising outcome of the second Trump-Kim summit, we have to realize it is not easy to bury the decades of hostility between Washington and Pyongyang. Pyongyang believes in a gradual approach to denuclearization while demanding that the US progressively lift the sanctions. But the US looks for complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization before easing any sanctions.

The differences between Washington and Pyongyang over the denuclearization process, combined with US media's demonization of the DPRK, have cast a shadow on bilateral negotiations. And owing to the lack of mutual trust, setbacks can happen at any stage of the negotiations.