Read Elizabeth Warren’s statement on Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un

Trump admitted North Korea’s rights record is a “rough situation”, but then shifted the focus to bringing home the remains of US soldiers from the Korean War.

After all the rhetoric and name-calling, Trump and Kim shook hands. Not a schedule for a complete inventory of North Korea’s nuclear and missile stockpiles.

The Kim-Trump summit meeting centred on nuclear disarmament and reducing tensions concluded with a one-page agreement.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the US has agreed to stop running military exercises in neighboring South Korea as part of its agreement with North Korea, which in turn pledged to destroy a major missile engine testing site. The leaders also offered lofty promises, with the American president pledging to handle a “very risky problem” and Kim forecasting “major change for the world”.

The message was clear: Kim had a decision to make.

Gary Locke, a former USA ambassador to China and past governor of Washington state, told UPI the relative absence of human rights from the joint statement is understandable in some ways. “But despite that, once you start the process it means it’s pretty much over”. Nor does it include a striking concession by Trump, who told reporters he would freeze US military “war games” with ally South Korea while negotiations between the USA and the North continue. Trump described the drills as “provocative” and “inappropriate”. At the time, North Korea had begun turning its nuclear fuel into warheads. Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung, had both wanted to meet with a USA president as a way to consolidate their power at home as well as increase their stature overseas. U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement Tuesday it was unaware of any policy change. Shortly after Trump’s presser, a spokesperson from South Korea’s Blue House (its executive branch of government) said that “the meaning and intention” of the U.S. president’s remarks regarding the war games “require more clear understanding”.

Trump relayed that Kim reacted to discussing human rights “very well” but said they “were talking about the denuclearization 90% of the time”.

While Trump may be eager to kickstart North Korea’s tourism board, his own State Department recommends against travel to North Korea. “The most important, hard part of this security issue is for the United States and North Korea to sit down to find a way to resolution via equal talks”, Wang said. Murphy, have been quick to point out that no long-term verification process was included in the agreement. The neighbors, which fought together during the Korean War, had grown apart previous year after China backed United Nations sanctions crimping North Korea’s energy imports and sources of foreign cash to pressure it to halt its nuclear and missile tests.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday welcomed the document signed by both leaders as a “first step” towards denuclearisation. The U.S. president brushed off questions about his public embrace of the autocrat whose people have been oppressed for decades.

Trump and Kim met on Tuesday for a historic diplomatic summit. It calls for the two countries to jointly work on efforts to build a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, to establish new U.S. “Think of it from the real estate perspective”. And he did not mention formally ending the Korean War, which many observers had predicted could be one outcome of the meeting.

The Twitter exchange came as Kim and Trump arrived in Singapore for the early Tuesday morning meeting.

Trump, who praised Kim and hailed the summit as a success while he was still in Singapore, said that he feels “very little” disappointment that he didn’t secure a bigger commitment from Kim as part of the talks.

President Trump is right: North Korean leader Kim Jung-un is “very talented”, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is “a very special person”.

“This is just a beginning and there may be many difficulties ahead, but we will never go back to the past again and never give up on this bold journey”.