Trump 'receptive' to correspondence with NK leader Kim: White House
U.S. President Donald Trump, right, poses with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their first summit in Singapore in June 2018. Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump is "receptive" to correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and wants to see the progress that was made during their first summit in 2018, a White House spokesperson said Wednesday.
Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson, made the remarks after NK News reported, citing an "informed high-level source," that North Korean diplomats in New York had refused to accept a letter from Trump, which was aimed at reestablishing communication channels between Washington and Pyongyang.
"The president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong-un, and he'd like to see the progress that was made at that summit in Singapore, which I know you covered in 2018 during his first term," Leavitt told a press briefing.
"As for specific correspondence, I'll leave that to the president to answer," she added.
The news report emerged amid expectations that Trump might seek to resume his personal diplomacy with the North Korean leader, which led to three in-person meetings between them — the first in Singapore in 2018, the second in Hanoi in February 2019 and the third at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom in June 2019.
At the Singapore summit, Trump and Kim agreed on joint efforts to pursue the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula and establish new bilateral relations in a deal that petered out amid deepening distrust between the two sides, and Pyongyang's unceasing push to sharpen its nuclear and missile capabilities.
The NK News report said that Trump drafted the letter to Kim with the aim of resuming dialogue, and that despite multiple attempts to deliver the letter in person, North Korean diplomats at their U.N. mission in New York have "bluntly" refused to accept it.
Asked about the report, a State Department spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency that the department "does not comment on any potential diplomatic communications."
While Trump's willingness to reengage with Kim has raised cautious optimism for the resumption of dialogue, concerns have lingered that Kim might have little appetite for talks with Washington given the North's reliance on Russia for food, fuel, military assistance and other types of support.
The president has said he will reach out to Kim again, claiming that he continues to maintain a "good" relationship with Kim, while calling the reclusive leader a "smart guy" and North Korea a "nuclear power."
The second Trump administration has reiterated its commitment to pursuing the "complete" denuclearization of North Korea. New South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's administration is expected to seek policy coordination with Washington on an approach to address Pyongyang's nuclear quandary.
In a conciliatory gesture to ease cross-border tensions, the Lee administration on Wednesday suspended loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts against North Korea along the border, raising cautious hope for improvement in frosty inter-Korean relations.