WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump would welcome communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after having had friendly relations with Kim during his first term, the White House said on Wednesday.
\n\u201cThe president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong Un,\u201d White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
\nShe was responding to a report by Seoul-based NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, that the North\u2019s delegation at the United Nations in New York had repeatedly refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim.
\nTrump and Kim held three summits during Trump\u2019s 2017-2021 first term and exchanged a number of what Trump called \u201cbeautiful\u201d letters. In June 2019, Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone with South Korea.
\nLittle progress was made, however, at reining in North Korea\u2019s nuclear program, and Trump acknowledged in March that Pyongyang is a \u201cnuclear power.\u201d
\nSince Trump\u2019s first-term summitry with Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
\nThe attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of a new president, Lee Jae-myung, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
\nAs a gesture of engagement on Wednesday Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the Demilitarized Zone along their shared border.
\nAnalysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Lee and Trump than it was in the US president\u2019s first term.
\nSince then North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow\u2019s war in Ukraine, to which Pyongyang has provided both troops and weaponry.
\nKim said in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump would welcome communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after having had friendly relations with Kim during his first term, the White House said on Wednesday. \u201cThe president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong Un,\u201d White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. She was responding to a report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-483743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n