United States President Donald Trump assured this Wednesday that he will meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un before the end of the year.
“Yes, I will meet with him”, replied Trump, when asked about it while showing some journalists the ongoing renovations at the White House.
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Trump also offered an unusual and particularly precise assessment of Kim’s atomic arsenal. “He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons. This should never have been allowed to happen”, the president told reporters at the White House. “But he has them. I get along very well with him”, he added.
Trump and Kim met on three occasions during the American president’s first term in the White House, but they did not hold talks during his second period.
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Kim’s sister says she is unaware of the contacts
The announcement comes hours after Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, claimed she was unaware of any reported communication between her brother and Trump, although she asserted that the bond between the two remains “excellent”.
“Regarding the recent news from Washington about communication between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, I have absolutely no knowledge of that,” he said in a statement. “It is probably the only foreign policy matter of our top leadership that I am unaware of,” he added, although he remarked that his brother still holds “good memories and feelings” toward Trump.
Trump had said on Monday, when asked if Kim had responded to his requests to talk, “yes, he did.” The US president insists that he is making the situation “much safer” through his ties with the North Korean leader. As reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, citing unidentified US officials, Trump is pushing his advisors to organize a meeting with Kim as early as this autumn.
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Washington and Seoul shorten their joint military exercises
The announcement also comes hours after Washington and Seoul confirmed that their annual military exercises, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS), will end a week earlier than planned, by order of Trump. The president had said on Sunday, one day before the exercises began, that he instructed the Pentagon to reduce them, citing his “good relationship” with Kim.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that the exercise was adjusted to take place between August 17 and 21, instead of extending until the 27th, as originally planned. The decision was made “at the suggestion of the U.S. side,” it specified. The Pentagon assured that the “substantially reduced” drills would “preserve essential readiness” without causing “any degradation in U.S. training objectives.” The exercises were designed in two phases: a first one, focused on defense against potential North Korean threats, and a second one, oriented toward a counteroffensive, which has now been discarded.
Kim Yo Jong, however, downplayed the cut: “we do not consider it worth commenting on and find it completely uninteresting,” she said, adding that reducing the scale or duration of the exercise does not change its “provocative and aggressive” nature. The North Korean state agency KCNA published a commentary on Wednesday morning describing the exercises as “the most immediate and open threat” to North Korea and “regional security,” without mentioning Trump’s order or his interest in resuming dialogue with Kim.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told lawmakers on Wednesday that his government was not informed in advance about Trump’s plan to reduce the exercises. “Neither our government nor U.S. government officials knew in advance what President Trump revealed through Truth Social,” Cho stated.
The United States maintains about 28,500 troops deployed in South Korea to reinforce the country’s defense, a legacy of the Korean War (1950-1953), which ended with an armistice and not a formal peace treaty.
