Trump says no meeting with Kim Jong-un during South Korea visit
U.S. President Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that he will not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his visit to South Korea this week.
Trump made the remark hours after arriving in Gyeongju to attend Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gatherings and a summit with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
“I know Kim Jong-un very well. We get along very well,” Trump said at the start of his summit with Lee at the Gyeongju National Museum. “We really weren't able to work out timing.”
The announcement came amid speculation that Trump’s South Korea visit, from Wednesday to Thursday, could have included a meeting with Kim to resume personal diplomacy over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The two leaders met three times during Trump's first term -- in Singapore in June 2018, in Vietnam in February 2019 and in the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom in June that year.
Panmunjom had been floated as the most likely venue should a fourth meeting materialize.
"I know you are officially at war, but we will see what we can do to get that all straightened out," Trump said, referring to the 1950-53 Korean War having ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.
"We'll have other visits, and we'll work very hard with Kim Jong-un and with everybody on getting things straightened out because that makes sense," he added.
The Trump-Kim meetings had been aimed at yielding an agreement on denuclearizing the North in exchange for U.S. concessions, including sanctions relief, but broke down over differences on how to match their steps.
Prior to arriving in South Korea, Trump had repeatedly expressed his openness to meeting again with Kim, indicating he could even extend his stay in the country if necessary.
The North has yet to publicly respond to the overtures, and in a potential sign of its disinterest, test-fired nuclear-capable cruise missiles the previous day.
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