SEOUL: South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said Saturday (March 14) that US President Donald Trump thinks a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would be "good".
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 Jong-un this year, potentially during Trump's April visit to Beijing.
Seoul's Kim, who met Trump in Washington, said the US president told him: "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 with Kim Jong-un "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," Kim added.
Trump said during a trip to Asia in October that he was "100 percent" open to meeting with 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".
Nuclear-armed Pyongyang, which has bolstered military ties with Russia, has condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran as an "illegal act of aggression". - AFP
