Trump tells South Korea he is only leader who can break North Korean deadlock

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok and US President Donald Trump discussed the possible reopening of talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a meeting in Washington, Yonhap news agency reported on Saturday. Kim told Trump he was the only Western leader to have had dialogue with North Korea’s Kim and was currently the only person who could resolve issues on the Korean peninsula, Yonhap quoted Kim as telling reporters in Washington. “President Trump said he was curious if Kim [Jong-un] wants to talk to the US or him and asked about my views on that,” Kim was quoted as saying. Kim did not say what specific suggestions he made to Trump but said he told Trump that recent comments by Pyongyang indicated Kim might be open to dialogue with the US, Yonhap said. Trump showed much interest in the topic, he added. Trump thinks a meeting with Kim Jong-un would be “good”, according to the South Korean prime minister. Washington has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme, but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact. In recent months, the Trump administration has pushed to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a possible summit with Kim this year, potentially during Trump’s April visit to Beijing. The South Korean prime minister said Trump told him during their talks: “Meeting [Kim Jong-un] would be good. It’s really good to meet. But it could happen when we go to China this time, or it might not, or it could even be later, couldn’t it?” Kim told reporters in the United States that he and Trump agreed that if a meeting “happens soon, or around the time of the China visit, that would in itself be meaningful”. “But even if not, what matters in essence is that dialogue or contact takes place, and [Trump] appears firm on that point.” Trump said during a trip to Asia in October that he was “100 per cent” open to meeting Kim Jong-un, a remark that went unanswered by the North. After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim Jong-un recently said that the two nations could “get along” if Washington accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status. North Korea also recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with South Korea, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce”. Trump met the North Korean leader for three rounds of talks in 2018 and 2019 to negotiate better relations and a path for Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons programme, but the talks stalled when Trump was voted out of office. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s meeting, which was not previously announced and occurred a day after Kim met US Vice-President J.D. Vance in Washington. Kim’s office has said he told Vance that South Korean parliament’s approval of a bill this week enabling Seoul to implement a US$350 billion investment pledge showed the government’s strong commitment to carrying out the agreement reached between the countries’ leaders. Kim’s office said Vance welcomed the bill’s passage, saying it established the legal conditions needed to implement the investment deal, and called for continued close communication between the governments on the issue. In late January, Trump threatened to raise tariffs on South Korean goods to 25 per cent, saying Seoul’s legislature had yet to enact the trade framework that had capped US levies at 15 per cent. Seoul and Washington are treaty allies with close military ties and more than 28,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea. South Korean media has reported that some US missile defence batteries have been shipped out of South Korea’s Osan Air Base and were likely to be redeployed to US bases in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates given the conflict in the Middle East.

Trump tells South Korea he is only leader who can break North Korean deadlock

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Trump was interested to know if North Korea’s Kim Jong-un would be open to meeting him, South Korean prime minister said

Trump was interested to know if North Korea’s Kim Jong-un would be open to meeting him, South Korean prime minister said