It's the second and final day of the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump's Mar-a-lago resort in Florida.
And it was another day jam-packed with news and comments on North Korea.
At a joint press conference with Abe on Wednesday, President Trump said the U.S. will do everything possible to make his meeting with the North Korean leader a "worldwide success".
For more, we connect to our Lee Ji-won on the phone.
Ji-won, tell us more about what we gleaned from this press conference...
Mark, much of the press conference covered North Korean issues and what the U.S. hopes to gain from it.
President Trump said he's looking forward to his meeting with Kim Jong-un and that hopefully, the talks are a great success, meaning North Korea promises and actually takes steps to irreversibly and permanently dismantle its nuclear program.
He said that "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" would be a tremendous thing for North Korea and for the world, and that the U.S. will be doing everything possible to make it a global success.
Now, though he sounded quite optimistic, Trump was, at the same time, firm that he won't be wasting time and will be "flexible" IF he thinks the meeting is an attempt to buy time or is not proving fruitful.
Take a look.
"If we don't think it's going to be successful, mark, we won't have it. We won't have it. If I think that it's a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we're not going to go. If the meeting, when I'm there is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting and will continue what we're doing or whatever it is that we'll continue but something will happen."
Determined words from President Trump. And Jiwon,... we touched on it yesterday, but there was speculation Abe was concerned about Japan being sidelined on this issue. An issue that affects Japan as much... if not more than it affects the U.S....
Right.
Well,.. President Trump recognized Abe for his hard work,... and acknowledged that Japan is geographically "a lot closer" to North Korea than the U.S. is... and that they are "working on this together."
The two leaders also reportedly agreed to continue their efforts towards the early resolution of Japanese abductees in North Korea.
Abe promised at the briefing that maximum efforts will be made to bring back the abductees and that he was deeply encouraged by Trump's efforts.
President Trump also talked about the three American citizens detained in North Korea.
He said negotiations are underway and the U.S. is fighting diligently to get the prisoners home safe.
That's all from me for now.
Mark.
