Donald Trump walks out of nuclear summit with North Korea

Kim Jong Un (left) and Donald Trump on Thursday walked away with no set plans for a third meeting. Pic/AFP

Hanoi: The US-North Korea nuclear summit in Hanoi ended abruptly without a deal on Thursday, with President Donald Trump saying he had decided to "walk" in the face of Kim Jong Un's demands to drop sanctions.

The much-anticipated second meeting between the two leaders was supposed to build on their historic first summit in Singapore, but they failed to sign a joint statement as initially scheduled and the talks ended in deadlock. "Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times," an unusually downbeat Trump said.

"Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn't do that," Trump said before leaving Vietnam. But the US president was "optimistic that the progress we made" before and during the summit left them "in position to have a really good outcome" in the future.

"I'd much rather do it right than do it fast," he added. He noted that Kim Jong Un had vowed not to resume nuclear or ballistic missile testing - something he previously identified as a yardstick for success - and reiterated their "close relationship" again. Kim will stay on in Vietnam for a state visit before his expected departure on Saturday.

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