WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday he hoped to meet again with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea\u2019s dovish new leader that got off awkwardly.<\/p>\n
Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Trump took to social media to denounce what he said was a \u201cPurge or Revolution\u201d in South Korea, apparently over raids that involved churches.<\/p>\n
Forty minutes into an Oval Office meeting in which Lee profusely praised Trump, the US leader dismissed his own sharply worded rebuke, saying, \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s a misunderstanding\u201d as \u201cthere is a rumor going around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump said he believed he was on the same page on North Korea as Lee, a progressive who supports diplomacy over confrontation.<\/p>\n
Trump, who met Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, hailed his relationship with the young totalitarian and said he knew him \u201cbetter than anybody, almost, other than his sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeday I\u2019ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,\u201d Trump told reporters, saying he hoped the talks would take place this year.<\/p>\n
Trump contended that North Korea has been firing fewer rockets since he returned to the White House on January 20.<\/p>\n
The president has boasted that he has solved seven wars in as many months back in the job \u2014 a claim that is contested \u2014 but had been quiet on North Korea despite the unusually personal diplomacy during his 2017-2021 tenure.<\/p>\n
Trump once said that he and Kim \u201cfell in love.\u201d Their meetings reduced tensions but failed to produce a lasting agreement.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang rebuffed overtures from Trump\u2019s predecessor Joe Biden, which Trump said showed they did not respect him.<\/p>\n
But Kim has also been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight.<\/p>\n
North Korea has dug in and refused any talk of ending its nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n
Lee, a former labor rights lawyer who has criticized the US military in the past, immediately flattered his host and said Trump has made the United States \u201cnot a keeper of peace, but a maker of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf\u201d there, Lee told him.<\/p>\n
He even cited propaganda from North Korea that denounced South Korea by noting that Pyongyang said the relationship with Trump was better.<\/p>\n
Kim \u201cwill be waiting for you,\u201d Lee told him.<\/p>\n
Lee was elected in June after the impeachment of the more hawkish Yoon Suk Yeol, who briefly imposed martial law.<\/p>\n
The raids denounced by Trump likely referred in part to investigations surrounding Yoon\u2019s conservative allies.<\/p>\n
Lee spoke through an interpreter, breaking the pace of Trump, who does not hesitate to pick fights with his guests.<\/p>\n
Trump, who frequently accuses European allies of freeloading off the United States, made clear he would press hard for greater compensation by South Korea over the 28,500 US troops in the country.<\/p>\n
He suggested the United States could seek to take over base land, an idea likely to enrage Lee\u2019s brethren on the South Korean left.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent a lot of money building a fort, and there was a contribution made by South Korea, but I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He also spoke bluntly about one of South Korea\u2019s most delicate issues: so-called \u201ccomfort women\u201d who were forced into sexual slavery during Japan\u2019s 1910-1945 rule.<\/p>\n
The South Korean left has historically been outspoken about Japan\u2019s legacy, although Lee visited Tokyo on his way to Washington, a highly symbolic stop praised by Trump.<\/p>\n
Japan had agreed to compensate comfort women but the deal was criticized by survivors who questioned Tokyo\u2019s sincerity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday he hoped to meet again with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea\u2019s dovish new leader that got off awkwardly. Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Trump took …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85907,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85894\/revisions\/85907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}