Speaking at the White House during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump said, "I have a great relationship with Kim Jong-un and we'll see what happens, but certainly, he's a nuclear power."
Kim "has a lot of nuclear weapons, by the way, a lot, and others do also. You have India, you have Pakistan, you have others that have them, and we get them involved," he added.
This is not the first time Trump has described North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, with a similar comment made shortly after taking office for his non-consecutive second term in January.
Recalling his first meeting with Kim in Singapore in 2018 and another photo-op in Hanoi the following year, he also bragged, as usual, claiming, "If I wasn't elected, if Hillary got in, you would have had a nuclear war with North Korea."
He went on to say that the success of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang here was one of key achievements during his first term. "The meeting caused the Olympics, which was South Korea, to become a tremendous success," he said. "Nobody was buying tickets for the Olympics because they didn't want to be nuked, and I met and not only did the Olympics become successful, but North Korea participated in the Olympics."
However, the Pyeongchang Olympics took place in February 2018, several months before the Singapore summit between the two countries.
Despite Washington reaffirming its stance on the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, Trump's unclear and often incorrect comments, including repeatedly referring to North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, raise concerns as he may try to reinitiate a rapprochement with Pyongyang.
reporter
Im Yoon-seo
lyseo0330@ajupress.com
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
View more comments