Trump warming up to contacts with Kim: White House
US 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.
'The president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong-un,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.
She was responding to a report by Seoul-based NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, that the North's delegation at the United Nations in New York had repeatedly refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim.
Trump and Kim held three summits during Trump's 2017-2021 first term and exchanged a number of what Trump called 'beautiful' letters. In June 2019, Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarised zone with South Korea.
Little progress was made, however, at reining in North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump acknowledged in March that Pyongyang is a 'nuclear power'.
Since Trump's first-term summitry with Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The 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.
As a gesture of engagement on Wednesday, Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the Demilitarised Zone along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Lee and Trump than it was in the US president's first term. — Reuters
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