NHK reported this afternoon that President Trump said during a meeting with members of Congress on Tuesday that negotiations with North Korea on denuclearization are going well and that there is no time limit for their conclusion. The president reportedly stressed that North Korea’s military provocations have subsided. The network showed the President saying: “There have been no rockets going up for the period of nine months. I think the relationship is very good so we’ll see how that goes. We have no time limit.” 

Noting that no concrete road map or time limit was included in the joint statement released after the Singapore summit, the network said some question whether the negotiations will smoothly move forward. The network also said the North Korean foreign ministry’s criticism of the U.S. after the meeting between Secretary Pompeo and Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol showed that there is a wide gap between the U.S. and DPRK positions. The network claimed that the President’s latest remarks are aimed at lowering expectations at home and abroad in view of the possibility that the denuclearization talks could be prolonged.