Donald Trump is likely to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un during his upcoming visit to Asia next month, CNN reported on Saturday. However, there is no confirmation yet on whether the meeting will ultimately take place.
According to a CNN report, officials in the Trump administration have privately discussed setting up a meeting between the President and the North Korean leader, though scepticism remains.
According to the sources quoted in the report, officials have not yet done any of the serious logistical planning they would need to do to arrange such a visit. That means there have not been any communications between Washington and Pyongyang like Trump had at times during his first term. The White House is yet to comment on the issue.
The report added that Trump had contacted Kim earlier this year but never received a reply because the North Koreans did not accept the letter.
The two leaders last met in the Korean demilitarised zone in June 2019, and that meeting was arranged less than 48 hours after Trump tweeted an invitation. So, things can change quickly.
Apart from a meeting with Kim, the White House has been focused on arranging for Trump’s sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping amid escalating trade tensions between the US and China.
But the Republican has publicly and privately expressed a desire to meet Kim Jong Un, and officials have left the door open to a meeting while he’s on his trip to Asia.
Donald Trump’s public interest in meeting Kim Jong Un
Donald Trump publicly showed interest in meeting Kim Jong Un while hosting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House in August. During their meeting, Lee formally invited Trump to attend the gathering of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers in South Korea.
Trump was open to the idea, even suggesting that Kim would like to meet with him..
“I will do that, and we’ll have talks. He’d like to meet with me. We look forward to meeting with him, and we’ll make relations better,” CNN quoted Trump as saying.
According to North Korean state media, Kim Jong Un also expressed an openness to meeting with Trump during a speech before the North Korean parliament last month. But he tied that meeting to Washington dropping the idea of denuclearising the Korean peninsula.
“Personally, I still have good memories of US President Trump. If the US drops its hollow obsession with denuclearisation and wants to pursue peaceful coexistence with North Korea based on the recognition of reality, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the US,” Kim said during his speech, per the reports
