US and North Korea suffer communication breakdown

Remember when Donald Trump said he and Kim Jong-un fell in love? Well now it seems they just don't talk anymore.

Instead, the US and North Korea appear to be staring one another down, waiting for the other to blink or make a move. And neither appears willing to give way.

Discussions aimed at setting up a second summit between the two leaders didn't happen as planned this week.

Chairman Kim's aide, the hardliner Kim Yong-chol was supposed to travel to New York and meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

But the BBC understands that the meeting was cancelled after the State Department discovered that the North Koreans didn't get on the plane as planned.

The official line is that the meeting will be rescheduled and Mr Trump said he's "very happy" with how things are going, and that he's in "no rush" while sanctions remain in place.

In Seoul, too, they are urging reporters not to read too much into the missed meeting - there have been missed meetings in the past, they say.

Although officials from the Foreign Ministry did express "disappointment".

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in warned me in his BBC interview that he expected "bumps and bruises" on the way as the international community tries to persuade North Korea to disarm.

But it's hard not to feel that both the momentum for talks and the opportunity to engage with North Korea may be slipping away.

Even at a lower level, the new US North Korean envoy Stephen Biegun has been in his job for over two months and has still not met his Pyongyang counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun-hui.