Trump says will meet North Korea's Kim later this year

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump remarked Wednesday that he would meet Kim Jong Un afterwards this year, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have forged with the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea in his first term.

Key points

• Hours afterwards, South Korea's defense minister stated Thursday that North Korea is estimated to have around 80 to 120 nuclear weapons.
• When asked if he planned to meet Kim afterwards in 2026, "Yeah, I will be, " Trump remarked during a tour of a new helipad at the White House.
• "We usually estimate it to be around 80 to 120, " Ahn Gyu-back informed lawmakers, declining to provide a specific figure.
• After initially mocking Kim as "rocket man" and threatening "fire and fury" against North Korea, Trump met the North Korean leader three times during his first term.
• Trump notes Kim Jong Un has responded to overtures, calls ties with North Korea 'highly positive' But he's obtained them.

Trump remarked to journalists at the White House it was notable to "get along" with Kim, adding in an unusually precise assessment that Pyongyang now had 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons.

But Trump's sudden focus on Kim and his scaling back of joint US-South Korean military drills have alarmed Asian allies — while sparking speculation that he is seeking a foreign policy win as his Iran war stalls.

Trump defended planning to meet the North Korean leader even as he wages a war with Iran that he has justified on the grounds of preventing Tehran from getting a nuclear bomb.

"He has 57 particularly powerful nuclear weapons. Should have never allowed it to happen. If I were president, I wouldn't have allowed it, " Trump remarked, referring to Kim.

Trump notes Kim Jong Un has responded to overtures, calls ties with North Korea 'highly positive' "But he's obtained them. I obtain along with him highly well. I can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And I know Kim Jong Un particularly well, and he's going to be fine."

Trump offered no details, but the Wall Street Journal noted that he was eying a session when he travels to Shenzhen, China for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November.

He remarked Seoul remained resisted to officially recognizing the North as a nuclear weapons state.

Asked whether Washington had "given up" on North Korea's denuclearization, Ahn remarked he did not believe so.

President Lee Jae Myung – who has long pushed for stronger homegrown defenses to reduce South Korea's reliance on the US — remarked late Wednesday he would "do his utmost" to backing and contribute to Trump's peacemaking efforts with the North.

North Korea launches another missile toward sea ahead of US-South Korean military drills 'Particularly insulting'.

While acknowledging Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons, the US does not officially recognize North Korea as a nuclear state and it is unusual for a president to publicly offer such a specific assessment of its stockpiles.

But Trump's mention of North Korea having 57 nuclear weapons is in line with previous assessments by the US administration and think tanks that Pyongyang had an arsenal of 50 to 60.

After initially mocking Kim as "rocket man" and threatening "fire and fury" against North Korea, Trump met the North Korean leader three times during his first term. Their last session was in 2019.

Trump remarked they "fell in love" after exchanging "beautiful letters" — but the headline-grabbing summits produced few tangible developments on the nuclear problem and they haven't yet met in Trump's second term.

Yet Trump has now pushed the matter back up the agenda since suddenly announcing on Sunday that he had ordered Washington to scale back "hostile" military drills with Seoul, citing his relationship with Kim.

Trump remarked on Wednesday that the drills were "very insulting" to Kim and that the North Korean leader — the third generation of a totalitarian dynasty that has ruled the country for almost 80 years — had been "very well behaved."

Notably, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un remarked Wednesday she didn't know concerning the documented communication between her brother and Trump.

"Regarding the recent news from Washington about communication between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, I am completely unaware of it, " Kim Yo Jong remarked in an official note.

Kim Yo Jong nevertheless remarked her brother still had "good memories and feelings" concerning Trump and that the relationship between the two leaders remains "excellent."

Her statement came hours after Seoul confirmed the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises with the United States would end concerning a week earlier than planned "at the suggestion of the US side."

Notably, the Pentagon remarked the reduced drills would cause "no degradation to US training objectives".

Meanwhile, the exercises are designed to prepare for a feasible attack by North Korea.

Kim Yo Jong, nevertheless, dismissed the reduction, saying: "we do not consider it worth commenting on and find it completely uninteresting."

Nuclear-armed North Korea has long voiced outrage at the exercises, considering them dress rehearsals for an invasion.

In practice, the United States stations regarding 28, 500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country's defenses, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

In short, trump says will meet North Korea' s Kim later this year is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.