U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ahead of his trip to Asia.
“Yes, if you want to say this, I’m open to that,” the U.S. president told reporters aboard Air Force One as he departed for the region, adding that he “has a great relationship” with Kim.
During his first term, Trump made history by becoming the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea with a final handshake in 2019.
He is scheduled to visit Malaysia and Japan to meet with China’s Xi Jinping and other world leaders amid trade negotiations sparked by President Trump’s sweeping tariffs earlier this year.
Trump has taken an unconventional approach to dealing with North Korea, a secretive communist totalitarian state largely isolated on the world stage and its attempts to build nuclear weapons, initially mocking Kim as “little rocket man.”
The two met three times during President Trump’s previous White House term, but were unable to agree on a denuclearization program. Neighboring countries reported that North Korea subsequently conducted several intercontinental missile tests.
Asked late Thursday whether he would recognize North Korea as a nuclear state, Trump told reporters late Thursday, “I think North Korea is sort of a nuclear state. They have a lot of nuclear weapons.”
Chairman Kim said he was willing to meet President Trump again if the United States stopped making absurd demands for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
“I still have good memories of President Trump,” Chairman Kim said in a speech last month, according to state media.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who oversees inter-Korean relations, said there was a “significant” possibility that the two leaders would meet during President Trump’s visit to Korea to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, AFP reported.
A senior U.S. official told reporters the meeting was not on President Trump’s schedule, according to Anadolu Agency. However, the last meeting held in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea took place at the invitation of President Trump on social media.
President Trump’s first visit is Malaysia, where he plans to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.
He is expected to arrive in Busan, South Korea, on Wednesday ahead of the APEC summit.
He is scheduled to meet South Korean leader Lee Jae-myung, who visited the White House in August to discuss peace on the Korean Peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim Jong-un meeting.
In an interview with the BBC, Lee said he was open to negotiations between Trump and Kim, which would see North Korea agree to stop producing nuclear weapons.
The meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place against the backdrop of the trade war between the two countries.
The two agreed to hold off on the triple-digit tariffs they threatened while seeking a trade deal. But this easing of tensions is in jeopardy after President Trump said he would rather impose a 100% trade levy on Chinese goods than curb China’s rare earth exports.
The mineral is essential for many electronic products, and China currently accounts for about 90% of exports in refined form.
