U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to meet North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un this year, reiterating a long-standing but unfulfilled diplomatic goal.
Trump told reporters in Washington that he would meet Kim, adding that he knows the North Korean leader well and enjoys a good relationship with him. "He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons," Trump said, a figure he has not previously cited publicly. Independent estimates place North Korea's nuclear arsenal at around 60 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
The U.S. administration does not release official estimates of North Korea's nuclear capabilities. Trump's comments follow a recent directive to the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, which he described as unnecessarily provocative toward Pyongyang. North Korea, he suggested, had been "respectful" in its stance.
Diplomatic efforts between the two leaders in 2018 and 2019 failed to yield progress on denuclearization, as the U.S. demanded verifiable dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program. Trump's remarks on Wednesday did not clarify why he now claims he would not have allowed North Korea to develop such weapons, given his previous inaction on the issue.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's influential sister and a senior North Korean official, said on Monday she was unaware of any recent communication between the two leaders. While describing U.S.-North Korea relations as "really great," she reiterated Pyongyang's objection to the ongoing U.S.-South Korea military drills, which North Korea views as a threat to its national security.
A report by the Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources as saying Trump is pushing his team to arrange a face-to-face meeting before the end of autumn. The White House has not confirmed any specific date or venue for such an encounter.
