US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will hold a second summit this week with no expectation of a final deal over ridding the North of nuclear weapons, but hope raised on Monday for an official peace on the peninsula.

Trump will arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday evening, said Vietnam’s foreign ministry. He will meet Vietnam President Nguyen Phu Trong, who is also the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, on Wednesday morning, said the ministry.

Kim is due to arrive in Vietnam early on Tuesday. No official details of his travel have been released.

The two leaders are due to meet in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, on Wednesday and Thursday, eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.

Trump, speaking in Washington on the eve of his departure for Vietnam, said that he saw eye to eye with Kim and that they had developed “a very, very good relationship”.

He appeared to play down any hope of a major breakthrough, and said he would be happy as long as North Korea maintained its pause on weapons’ testing.

“I’m not in a rush.” said Trump. “I just don’t want testing. As long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.”

Trump said that he and Kim expected to make progress at the summit and again held out the promise that denuclearisation would assist North Korea’s economy. He scoffed at critics of his handling of North Korea, and added that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been supportive of US’ efforts.

The Korean war

A South Korean presidential spokesman told reporters in Seoul that the two sides might agree to a formal end of the war, which the North has long called for as a major step towards normalising ties.

“The possibility is there,” Kim Eui-kyeom, the spokesman, told a briefing in Seoul when asked if an end-of-war declaration was on the agenda. In return, North Korea could allow international inspectors to observe the dismantlement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, said analysts.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, who supports reconciliation with old rival North Korea, praised both Trump and Kim in Seoul, and said those opposed to ties between North Korea and the United States, should “discard such biased perspectives”.

South Korea is looking forward to “tangible and substantial” results from this week’s summit in Hanoi between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Kang Kyung-wha, South Korean Foreign Minister, in Geneva on Monday.

She added, “We are hopeful of a substantial outcome, both on the side of the denuclearisation as well as on the side of the corresponding measures from the United States.”

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