Donald Trump said he was willing to engage with North Korean leader Kim Kong Un once again, raising hope that the US could resume diplomacy with the reclusive state.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday, the American president repeated his praise for Mr Kim, describing him as a “smart guy”.
“He’s not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy. Kim Jong Un is a smart guy,” Mr Trump told Mr Hannity.
Asked if he would reach out to him again, Mr Trump responded: “I will, yeah. He liked me, and I got along with him.”
The new US president has repeatedly boasted about having good relations with the North Korean leader even as ties between Washington and Pyongyang deteriorated under Joe Biden’s administration.
In his first term as president from 2016 to 2020, Mr Trump alternated between bluster and diplomacy when engaging with North Korea. He mocked Mr Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and threatened to unleash “fire and fury” following a North Korean nuclear test.
Still, from 2018 to 2019, the two leaders made history by meeting three times – in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Mr Trump also most famously claimed that he and Mr Kim “fell in love”.
But that unprecedented flurry of talks fizzled out as the two sides were unable to agree on what should come first – sanctions relief or steps towards North Korea’s denuclearisation. Pyongyang has since said it has no interest in returning to diplomacy based on personal relations between the two leaders.
In the interview, Mr Trump recalled Barack Obama’s remark that North Korea was the single greatest threat to America.
“He (Mr Obama) said North Korea is the biggest threat, and I solved that problem,” he said, adding: “I’m not Obama.”
On his first day back in office, Mr Trump called North Korea a “nuclear power”, indicating a potential change in his government’s policy towards Pyongyang.
“I was very friendly with him. He liked me. I liked him. We got along very well,” Mr Trump said of Mr Kim. “He is a nuclear power. We got along. I think he will be happy to see me coming back.”
Pyongyang’s arch rival and US ally South Korea appeared to downplay Mr Trump’s comments, saying North Korea “can never” have the status of a nuclear weapons state.
North Korean state media Rodong Sinmun reported Mr Trump’s inauguration in a two-sentence dispatch on Wednesday. The outlet said he was sworn in as the 47th president of the US, without using the inflammatory rhetoric it usually employs while talking about America.
Pyongyang has downplayed the possibility of a change in its policy towards America, which it has accused of provoking tensions on the Korean peninsula with high-profile military drills in the Pacific with South Korea and Japan.
Mr Kim last month called the US “the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy” and vowed to implement the “toughest” anti-US policy.
