US president Donald Trump has expressed willingness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his whirlwind Asia tour.
Mr Trump embarked on a five-day tour of Asia on Friday night, his first of the term, with stops in Malaysia and Japan, before concluding the trip in South Korea for a face-to-face meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping aimed at de-escalating the trade war.
The only meeting that could eclipse the Xi summit would be an impromptu reunion with North Korean leader Mr Kim. “I would. If you want to put out the word, I’m open to it,” Mr Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One.
“I had a great relationship with him," the US president added.
If realised, the meeting would mark the two world leaders’ first summit since their last at the Korean border village of Panmunjom in June 2019. The two leaders met three times during Mr Trump’s first presidency.
Although there has been no confirmation about a possible meeting, speculation has been rife since South Korea's unification minister Chung Dong Young told lawmakers this month it was possible that Mr Trump could again meet with Mr Kim in the Demilitarised Zone.
The new liberal South Korean government has repeatedly urged Mr Trump to take the lead in reopening dialogue with Mr Kim.
Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Mr Kim as he boasted of his relationship with the North Korean leader and called him “a smart guy”.
The North Korean leader said last month that he was open to talks with the US president, but only if Washington dropped its demand for the denuclearisation of the reclusive East Asian state.
“Personally, I still have fond memories of US president [Donald] Trump,” Mr Kim said, publicly naming the US president for the first time since he was elected to the Oval Office in January.
“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Mr Kim added.
Since his earlier diplomacy with Mr Trump fell apart due to disputes over US-led sanctions on North Korea, Mr Kim has accelerated the expansion of an arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike the US and its allies.
He has also strengthened his diplomatic footprint by aligning with Russia over its war in Ukraine and tightening relations with China.
North Korea has been under UN sanctions and arms embargoes since its first nuclear test in 2006.
With an enlarged nuclear arsenal, stronger diplomatic backing from Russia and China and the weakening enforcement of sanctions, Mr Kim has greater leverage and clearly wants the US to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear power, a status needed to call for the lifting of UN sanctions.
But that would run counter to the US and its allies’ long-held position that sanctions would stay in place unless North Korea fully abandons its nuclear program.
Koh Yu Hwan, a former president of South Korea’s Institute of National Unification, told the AP that any meeting between the two leaders at the APEC meeting is unlikely to produce meaningful results.
To get Mr Kim back to talks, Mr Trump would have to bring something enticing him to the table this time around, he added.
Even if they don’t meet this month, there are still chances for both leaders to resume diplomacy later.
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