U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet North Korea Chairperson Kim Jong-un within this year. After recently ordering a scaling back of the South Korea-U.S. joint exercises and sending conciliatory messages to North Korea, he directly expressed his intent to resume a U.S.-North Korea summit.
On the 19th (local time), meeting with reporters at the White House, President Trump was asked, "Do you expect to meet Chairperson Kim Jong-un within this year?" and answered, "Yes. I will (I will be)."
When asked whether he had exchanged letters with the Chairperson, he said, "I can't say that." He added, "I get along well with him," and emphasized, "The fact that I get along well with him is not a bad thing but a good thing."
President Trump also said that the Chairperson "has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons." He then criticized the former Joe Biden administration, saying, "That should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. If I had been president, I would never have allowed it." He added, "But since he already has those weapons, I am getting along very well with him."
However, the figure of exactly 57 nuclear weapons in North Korea's arsenal is not an officially confirmed number. Expert estimates of North Korea's nuclear warhead stockpile vary by organization. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated in June that North Korea may have assembled about 60 nuclear warheads and possesses fissile material to make at least 30 more.
The remarks came as President Trump has been sending repeated signals for dialogue to North Korea by ordering a recent reduction of the South Korea-U.S. joint exercises. Trump earlier argued on social media that the joint exercises send an "entirely inappropriate and hostile message" to Pyongyang, while assessing that during his presidency North Korea had shown a nonthreatening and respectful attitude.
President Trump and the Chairperson held two summits during his first term, in Singapore in 2018 and in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019. In 2019, they met at Panmunjom, and at the time Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to cross the Military Demarcation Line into North Korean territory.
The relationship between the two leaders was not friendly from the start. In 2017, the Chairperson strongly criticized President Trump, and the two sides clashed over a "nuclear button." Relations improved rapidly after their direct meetings, but denuclearization talks stalled after the Hanoi summit ended without an agreement.
Still, it is unclear whether North Korea will respond immediately this time. Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the North's Workers' Party, dismissed President Trump's step to scale back the South Korea-U.S. exercises, saying she is "not interested at all." On the possibility of communication between the leaders of the North and the United States, she also said, "We do not know anything about that at all."
As President Trump has confidently previewed a meeting with the Chairperson within the year even without a public response from the North, attention is focusing on whether behind-the-scenes contacts are underway between the United States and North Korea. However, so far neither the North nor the U.S. government has officially disclosed specific details such as the schedule, venue, or agenda for talks.