this face to face beach seeing the traffic has all been stopped teeming streets here but no one's allowed to be anywhere near these roots of these motorcades right now security i was wandering around the streets of hanoi a little bit earlier extremely tight this is not the sort of thing vietnam normally stages they're determined not to make any mistakes with this one and the security as tight as it could possibly be as you see there the motorcade arriving towards the metropole hotel ahead of the first face to face meeting which we understand will just speed the two of them in the room with no weights whatsoever and that is going to be taking place in the next ten minutes not clear to me at this stage certainly we remember what we saw in singapore the capella hotel on sentosa island there the cameras did see that first hand shake not clear from the white house or from of it the means or thought is whether we're actually going to see that the beginning of this twenty minute face to face meeting on camera or not and then be

interesting to see what the president's demeanor is when take given the problems that are mounting for him back home that committee was telling us about just a short while ago and the fact that he's stinging from what he can say it is to be criticism unfair criticism of what singapore actually achieved. yes and he is right in some ways about what singapore achieved because we were at a moment which felt like very close to the edge of war with a nuclear powered state and now we have friendly relationships between these two leaders so the fact that they met and it was friendly was a major achievement did that change any of the fundamentals of the problem no has anything changed since singapore seven months ago not really they've had some talking but they haven't made a lot of progress that is one of the problems with the way they've structured this

it's a top down process and whenever it hits problems the way it's structured it looks like you have to go back to the top and that's why the north koreans have been given a rare honor which is in less than a year to face to face meetings with the president of the u.s. and if you look at diplomatic cards that you can play or negotiation just wheeling out your leader is a big concession from the u.s. side the u.s. i think making concessions by having both of these meetings at this level in the north koreans you could argue have not given as much president trump for the last few hours been away from the camera he had those meetings with the vietnamese leadership with the president and the prime minister a little bit earlier on and since then he's been in this hotel we can only guess what he's been doing but i suspect he has access we know he has access to his cable t.v. i'm sure he has access to watch us channels i'm sure he's not necessarily watching out his ear i suspect he's watching fox news and i suspect he's listening to all of

those comments about michael cohen the man he trusted his closest adviser his lawyer the man who i'm sure he now regards as a traitor as he's turned against him and is prepared to spill the beans on absolutely everything to do with all of his business dealings his interaction with the. star letters to the colleges and schools that donald trump attended apparently alleging that he wrote to them and said don't ever reveal donald trump's exam results or his grades these sort of things i'm sure the president is stewing over and remember he is also the president of the united states so on a trip like this he'll be briefed by his national security staff about the key issues in the world so i'm sure someone has been talking to him about the very dangerous situation with regard to india and pakistan that will be coming across his desk too this is going to be

a very difficult time for president trump who one would hope given the enormity of the meeting is about to have should be focused very much on north korea because this is a very complex detailed while and you know that his counterpart here kim was brought up with this stuff this is the family business running north korea and their nuclear program is very much the family jewels so one of these two knows a great deal about north korea and its nuclear program president trump not someone who normally likes to read books and briefing notes we suspect doesn't know quite so much and james of course it doesn't just involve these two players does it there are other countries and personalities involved chief among them of course the south koreans and the chinese and the japanese of course have got interests in what goes on in hanoi today and tomorrow. yes

and if you look at it there will be many who who analyze these things who will say that the regional dimension is not particularly good for the united states because the north koreans the way they've played things whether it's deliberate or accidental have managed to split the alliance between the u.s. as traditional allies in the region south korea's been pushing the diplomacy encouraged a left of center leader president moon encouraged with the potential of better relations with north korea a reconciliation between these two divided parts of this land japan extremely skeptical so a division there secondly china of course looking at all this very closely and in some ways china's been getting its way what has been achieved since the singapore summit is basically what china has been arguing for for years what it calls a freeze for

a freeze which is north korea stopping its testing of missiles and its nuclear capability and the u.s. stopping its military exercises chinee the chinese have been advocating this for a very long time and actually right now the u.s. has followed the chinese playbook again something that i think that will not necessarily please the japanese may well not please some of those hawks that are also in the administration and in the republican party interesting when we look at the guest list for this dinner tonight who is not invited the notable absent see who would expect to be at the right hand side of a u.s. president in a key negotiation like this is the national security advisor john bolton remember he was a key official in the bush administration when it took a very hawkish line against north korea north korea was then part of the axis of evil and john bolton was

a key official worked on north korea and the top. the six party talks he was also the u.s. ambassador to the united nations pursuing a tough line against north korea and pursuing sanctions what you need to know about john bolton i think is the title of his autobiography when it comes to north korea the book is called surrender is not an option. and yes of course john bolton is well known as neither he subscribes to the to the theory of regime change which of course would not please the north koreans but what about this issue of the sudden suspension of the joint military exercises with south korea because that came as a bit of a surprise in that a bolt from the blue is completely unscripted so i would imagine that many of those onlookers and now a tiny bit apprehensive as to what the president might come up with might agree to perhaps even inadvertently or unwittingly

a giving giving advantage to kim without patsy even realizing the significance. yeah i mean the interesting player in this was of course mattis the defense secretary he's now no longer on the scene but the word is that he wasn't at all pleased that those exercises came to a man and we're seeing more pictures i think of the north korean delegation outside the hotel as we prepare for this meeting but others around. the pentagon and around the military leadership on the korean peninsula general brooks who was in charge was i think not necessarily pleased about the idea of stopping these exercises i mean the fear among military chiefs is that yes it's a gesture of good will but you might need those forces and the more you don't do

the exercises the more you lose your ability and your readiness to respond so it'll be interesting to see whether the u.s. agrees to continue to freeze its military exercises they have done some with a lower level but when they continue to mainly freeze the big exercises i suspect they have no option because it's almost the deal it's already been done you don't do any more nuclear testing north korea you don't test any missiles you don't fire any into range missiles and we won't do any military testing it's going to be hard i think for the us to back out of that but i don't in the military likes it because the military feels that every month that goes by without an exercise if this turns sour sour if this process collapses then there's going to be a big problem indeed and i'm going to seeing some pictures on a monitor here are sunni leaders i think marty yes james you're absolutely right we're looking at that very moment the moment that we've all been waiting for and

that is the handshake. no smiles from what i can see here but there are a few words i don't know if we can hear them now. oh. well factor all. right. thank you over and over and thanks this. is a pretty good theory let me walk free to. be free to be a good kid coming back and we're going to. hold. people. so it's

going to mean for me. right james right it doesn't look entirely comfortable they're not being with each other as they were in singapore and i had wasn't able to pick up any of the sound whatsoever were you able to hear anything. i wasn't able to hear a lot of the sound from that i have to say they did look a little uncomfortable not clear to me whether there's something uncomfortable going on in terms of the fundamental relationship or whether they actually just weren't quite sure what they were supposed to do whether they were getting the stage directions beforehand about how this was supposed to work and so they were sort of rather left to what are we supposed to do how are we supposed to speak and i suspect it might well be the latter rather than the disagreement at the last minute between the two sides and at the end there were some smiles and kim was

smiling again with the u.s. president they've built a reporter in singapore one assumes they will try and rebuild that now as they go off we're told for twenty minutes maybe more face to face time we think there'll probably be a translator in the wings on either side because they don't speak each other's languages kim we suspect speaks a little bit of english a few words here and there but we are pretty certain that president trump doesn't speak a word of korean but it's interesting isn't it james that now they go to dinner is cut it's a working dinner after all isn't it but interesting they the john bolton won't be there so that should ease the masses somewhat. yeah i don't think they'd like john bolton there as i said before go back to the bush era he's associated with the bush era that phrase axis of evil everything from

that period i think made relations worse between north korea and the united states this has been a very very difficult relationship of course john bolton it's a view he's made very clear about this before he joined the administration which is that north korea has a pattern when it comes to negotiation with the west and particularly the u.s. and that is that it delays and it cheats and it's done that repeatedly and you should not trust a word day sad john bolton it said and been reported believes this process is ultimately going to collapse for president trump right now when he looks at things in the way they are viewed back in the united states and that clearly matters to a president who is in the third year of his administration and next year will be the last year before a presidential election he's got to count the things that are wins as he goes into

an election campaign this is one of those rare things of his policies that have actually right now in the wind column he's turned imminent war into some sort of fragile peace process yes it hasn't really got going but it's it's a it's progress in the right direction look at many other files that he's done for example where is that war he promised the centerpiece of his last presidential campaign and this is one of the things he can declare a win so john bolton fearing this could collapse that's the one thing president trump doesn't want that may explain why we're seeing a pretty softly softly approach by the white house they do not force wants and the president in particular does not want this process to collapse now james let certainly looking at their lives now. basis the leaders sitting down let's just listen let's hear if there are any questions and any replies that we can pick up on . the.

news. and they were to be fielded from. the right however we took over all the obstacles and here we are today to. thank you thank you to be. monolingual holding warm odio you will be. going to the us. it will be that those two hundred sixty my friends the bridge where and during me a lot in sticking up for necessary and also love because believe. me if you want me. to move the argument we want you on. how much of that you're able to hear but it's not really like it's like

question and answer session but it sounds very much as though that might be people just making making statements and then they're being translated so how long do we expect these two leaders to be sitting there looking a little bit more comfortable with each other it must be said let's listen to president trump it's an honor to be together. in really a country again where they really rolled out the red carpet and they've been very close and. it's great to be with you we had a very successful first summit i felt it was very successful and some people would like to see phil thank you very much for you thanks for the will be happy with what we're doing but i think the first summit is a great success and i think it's one i feel it will be equal or greater than the first event. broke in addicted british brothers was our relationship is really a good one. and.

all right. so there we saw president trump expressing some of the pique that he feels what he thinks is a rather unfair assessment of the singapore. summit and emphasizing yet again how that personal chemistry seems to be driving this process along. absolutely marcin president trump i think this will be a really successful relationship his words hard to hear them the pictures we get so you're coming from the vietnamese state television who are providing the pictures to us not particularly good sound particularly not good sour it came from a look because he's sitting at the front there are you what we're trying to listen to is the translator next to it thank you thank you thank you thank you and i look forward to watching it happen and helping it to happen and we will help to. be

one of the. ones trying to change so i just caught the tail end of that and he says he looks forward to helping it happen i would assume he's referring to not only the denuclearization of north korea but the modernization if you like the very point of having this summit in in. in vietnam and they see the handshake and a big smile certainly on the part of kim but it the whole point of being in vietnam is that offer us some sort of democratic inducements if you like for kim. and those are your years and you should want to thank you very much very very well i was here on. your.

all right well that seems to be the end of that it seems as though it is it is the end of this isn't it but there james. james fraser diplomatic editor he was listening to that with this i think we can now speak to him oh no we're going to be going to go back to james diplomatic editor so james so we had a little bit in the way but we saw them warm up within the space of a couple of minutes from the first initial slightly frosty hand stray handshake and then quite a warm beaming smile towards the end and president trump saying saying he's looking forward to tomorrow and sounding pretty upbeat and optimistic. yeah a very quick technical note for you these pictures coming from vietnamese t.v. sound not great particularly from the translators who were sitting to the side in north mike i can tell you that also there will be north korean cameras there and white house cameras and the white house teams will almost certainly have their

sound booms which are effectively those microphones on fishing poles so in the half an hour or so we'll get their pictures back they'll all have been taking notes we'll have translation so i think things will be clearer in about twenty minutes or so and we'll have clear a sound bytes from this to be absolutely clear what they said but positive language coming from both sides no sign of any breakthrough nothing concrete announced here again i think rebuilding this relationship between the two man the ball nd that they built in singapore president trump has even gone to as far as saying he fell in love in singapore we didn't see that again this time it looked a little awkward but this that just the opening moments of a summit they now go to a face to face meeting twenty minutes away from the cameras on their own then the working dinner with two of their key officials alongside them plus translators and

that i think is a working dinner but it's again meant to set the atmosphere and then the really difficult stuff is on thursday when they're going to sit down and actually have around the sort of boardroom table proper negotiation james thanks for that well no doubt now we can talk to b.j. kim you was a south korean diplomat and now is adjunct professor at hancock university of foreign studies he's joining us from the south korean capital seoul thank you very much for being with us what are the south koreans looking for in this encounter aside from that rather awkward choreography in these initial stages what the south koreans focusing on. i guess in terms of the vigils koreans were looking for more of a broad smile and a little bit of a more greater sense of delight in these two leaders meeting again after two hundred sixty days or in months here but some of the observers i'm hearing here that they're proud to have smile as who are not very big and somehow maybe

it's kind of like psychology here we've been hearing for the past few days that it could be a small deal not a for denuclearization but a freeze and who knows maybe because of that some of my friends who are watching the t.v. were just telling us that we don't we don't says much smile here or maybe things are getting more difficult and maybe you know when the the presidential office spokesperson talks about there's no distinction between big deal and then small deal it's all continuum whatever and here we seem to notice that the final deal that may come out may not be something that could excite people there are some concerns here and especially because of the whole lack a broad smile i think there is a sense of never in his nervousness continuously going up right but a five from the united states meeting north korea the relationship between the koreas has improved dramatically hasn't it in the in the year that we've seen this

or approach between trump and kim it's really given the boost to into korean relations. right india there is no question about that in the especially this government in seoul they have shown great enthusiasm in improving the relationship and of course that addresses the people's desire to see the sense of peace here specially during the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen leading up to the integration of present in there were increasing sense of insecurity and nervousness about north korea's provocations and and all these harsh words coming from washington so now having been office for nearly close to two years now and he's been working hard to improve the into korean relations as you pointed out and and as a result of that we see a clear commitment on the side of the sole government in continuously improving the

relationship and living up to this certainly there's world the president office has been working very hard to share the sense of progress being made at this front and kind of trying to manage people's expectations here so that people will have a proper and realistic speaking the expectation and then some kind of keeping the momentum behind the continuous progress even after the one oysterman and so on the current government has been working very hard on that right ok thank you very much indeed p.j. came talking to us live from seoul thank you so much never going to go back to hanoi to the vietnamese capital our white house correspondent kelly out there and kimberly it was really hard to hear the exchanges between president trump and chairman kim but what i picked up on and james at diplomatic editor also heard and that was a certain. a certain bitterness if you like about the way president trump said the the results from the singapore summit have been received he thought that

he was being unfairly judged i mean this seems to be kind of a theme doesn't it for president chumpy think thing the ball went brilliantly well and a lot of people think not very much was actually achieved. right there what we do know about donald trump is that he does not like criticism and that has been on his mind some of the criticism of the outcome of singapore so recently in fact that he was tweeting about it just before that meeting them face to face meeting at the metropolitan the president saying that it was unfair reporting this is a common theme for this president when he doesn't like how something he's done is being portrayed in the news media but let's think for a moment about singapore and the goals that were sort of laid out as they accepted that historic summit essentially you know there were really four pillars in place

to establish new relations that there would be peace on the korean peninsula that there would be an affirmation for there to be denuclearized nation by north korea and that there would be a recovery of the remains of u.s. soldiers.