US President Donald Trump acknowledges North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, raising possibility of meeting with Kim Jong Un during his APEC visit.
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: US President Donald Trump stated that North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power” as he departed for Asia on a trip that might include a meeting with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un.
When questioned aboard Air Force One about recognising North Korea as a nuclear state as a precondition for dialogue, Trump responded: “Well, I think they are sort of a nuclear power.”
He added: “When you say they have to be recognized as a nuclear power, well, they got a lot of nuclear weapons, I’ll say that.”
Trump is scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Wednesday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum.
US media previously reported that officials from his administration have privately discussed arranging a meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim, whose last talks occurred in 2019.
Trump has expressed hope to meet Kim again, possibly within this year.
Kim stated last month that he had “fond memories” of Trump and remained open to talks if the United States abandoned its “delusional” demand for Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear weapons.
South Korea’s unification minister Chung Dong-young said Friday he believed there was a “considerable” chance that Trump would meet Kim during his visit to the peninsula next week.
However, a senior US official speaking anonymously told reporters Friday that a meeting “is not on the schedule for this trip.”
Although no official announcements have been made, South Korea and the United Nations Command suspended tours of the Joint Security Area from late October to early November.
Kim and Trump last met in 2019 at Panmunjom in the JSA within the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
Minister Chung noted that North Koreans have been observed “sprucing up” areas near the JSA for the first time this year, including cleaning, weeding, tidying flower beds and taking photographs.
Kim met Trump three times for high-profile summits during the US leader’s first term.
Their last impromptu meeting at Panmunjom was hastily arranged after Trump extended an invitation to Kim on Twitter one day earlier.
That event featured the two leaders shaking hands over the concrete slabs dividing North and South before Trump walked several paces into Pyongyang’s territory.
Trump thereby became the first US president ever to set foot on North Korean soil.
Subsequent talks ultimately collapsed over disagreements regarding how much of its nuclear arsenal North Korea would surrender and what Pyongyang would receive in return.
North Korea has since repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state. – AFP
