US President Donald Trump has said he intends to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year, reviving speculation about a possible fourth summit between the two leaders.
Trump made the disclosure on Wednesday while responding to questions about whether he planned to hold in-person talks with Kim, with whom he held three meetings during his first term.
“Yeah, I will,” Trump said when asked whether he planned to meet Kim.
“I get along with him. And you know what? The fact that I get along with him — that’s a good thing,” he added.
However, it remains unclear how concrete the plans are for a new Trump-Kim summit.
Trump declined to say whether he had exchanged letters with the North Korean leader. A planned meeting during Trump’s Asia trip last year also failed to materialise, partly because of logistical difficulties in arranging a summit at short notice.
The latest comments came after Trump spent the past two days making moves that appeared aimed at improving relations with Pyongyang.
He shortened planned US-South Korea military exercises and posted a photograph of his 2019 meeting with Kim at the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone.
A US official said White House officials have also considered Trump’s planned trip to Asia for a leaders’ summit in November as a possible opportunity to restart direct diplomacy with North Korea.
Trump and Kim held three high-profile meetings during his first presidency, including a historic encounter at the DMZ in 2019, when Trump briefly crossed into North Korean territory.
Despite the meetings, however, the negotiations failed to produce an agreement to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. North Korea subsequently accelerated its development and production of nuclear weapons.
Trump on Wednesday appeared to downplay concerns over North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal, which he said stood at 57 weapons, while blaming previous US administrations for allowing the programme to expand.
“If I were I president I wouldn’t have allowed it,” Trump said.
He argued that his personal relationship with Kim, developed during their roughly eight hours of meetings during his first term, could help prevent further escalation.
“I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine as long as we have a smart president,” Trump said.
“If we have a dumb president, then he’s probably not going to be so fine.”
A new Trump-Kim meeting would mark an attempt to revive the personal diplomacy that characterised Trump’s first term, although it remains uncertain whether renewed talks could make progress on North Korea’s nuclear programme where previous summits failed.
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