SEOUL, South Korea_President Donald Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone at Panmunjom on Sunday, capping 24 hours of speculation and scrambling.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in confirmed that the meeting will take place during a news conference in Seoul following a meeting with Trump.
Moon praised the president for engaging North Korea, saying, "President Trump is the maker of peace on the Korean Peninsula."
"Sixty-six years after the armistice, North Korea and the U.S. will meet," Moon said at the news conference. "For the first time, U.S. and North Korean leaders will stand face to face at Panmunjom, a symbol of the division, and shake hands for peace."
Trump, who invited Kim to meet him at the DMZ just a day ago and has since teased the possibility of the historic meeting, said the meeting would be short.
"I look forward to seeing him. We have a very good relationship," Trump said.
"I was just thinking yesterday, 'Hey, I'm here, let's see if we can say hello to Kim Jong Un,'" Trump said. "There's a lot of good feeling."
Taking a victory lap for his engagement with North Korea, Trump falsely claimed that Kim had refused to meet with his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
"The Obama administration was begging for a meeting," Trump said. "They were begging for a meeting constantly, and Kim Jong Un would not meet with him."
In reality, Kim and his father, who preceded him as North Korea's ruler, had both sought a face-to-face meeting with U.S. presidents. All past presidents, including Obama, had refused to meet unless North Korea made changes in its policies, especially its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Trump has been willing to meet with Kim even as the North Koreans continue to develop their nuclear arsenal and test missiles, although they have stopped tests of long-range missiles that potentially could reach U.S. territory.
He has portrayed the diplomacy with North Korea as the result of his unique personality-focused approach to foreign policy and a friendship he's established with Kim.
"For some reason, we have a certain chemistry," Trump said.
Asked at the news conference what Kim has done to deserve a third face-to-face meeting, Trump did not answer, but said Sunday's meeting could pave the way for another full summit meeting between the two.
"It's just a step. It might be an important step and it might not," he said. "As far as another meeting, let's see what happens today before we start thinking about that."
Despite his willingness to engage with autocratic leaders without conditions, Trump insisted that he's not overeager for a final deal.
"I'm in no rush," he said. "I'm in no rush with Iran. I'm never in a rush. If you're in a rush, you get yourself in trouble."
The first public indication the two leaders might meet came when the president tweeted Saturday that he hoped to see Kim when he visited the DMZ _ a part of his itinerary that had been widely speculated about but kept under wraps by the White House for security purposes until Trump confirmed it publicly.
Hours later, he told reporters at a news conference in Osaka, Japan, that North Korea had responded quickly to express Kim's openness to the somewhat impromptu meeting.
"He follows my Twitter," Trump said of Kim.
Traditionally, a meeting with a foreign leader, especially one like Kim who heads a nuclear-armed government long at odds with the U.S., wouldn't take place without months of preparation. But Trump continues to believe in his ability to achieve foreign policy goals simply through personal relationships with other leaders.
"We have a very good relationship, the two of us," Trump said earlier in the day, repeating an assertion he made a day earlier that he believes the U.S. and North Korea would be at war had he not been elected.
"I'm really the opposite of a warmonger," Trump said.
Moon, who is scheduled to accompany Trump to the DMZ, endorsed the meeting with Kim at the outset of his own meeting with Trump here on Sunday afternoon.
A handshake across the border that has separated North and South Korea since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war would be an immensely powerful image.
"I believe that picture in itself would represent a historic event, and this will be a significant milestone in the peace process on the Korean peninsula," Moon said at the outset of a meeting with Trump.
Moon spoke to Trump over dinner Saturday about what he described as Kim's resolve to denuclearize and spoke positively of the North Korean leader, Moon's spokesman told local reporters.
Trump also spoke amicably of Kim, the spokesman said.
Moon and Kim held a summit in April of last year in the DMZ at the village of Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed. The two initially shook hands standing on either side of a concrete barrier, then Moon invited Kim to step over the border into South Korea, and Moon stepped into North Korea, holding Kim's hand.
Trump said Saturday that he would be willing to step into North Korea himself, should he be invited. He also said that if Kim failed to show up at the DMZ, he would not take it as a bad sign.
"Of course, I thought of that because I know if he didn't, everybody is going to say, 'Oh, he was stood up by Chairman Kim,'" Trump said. "No, I understood that."
Kim "very much wants to" meet, he said. "We are trying to work it out.
"It will be very short, but that's OK," he added. "A handshake means a lot."
