President Trump said he would meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
The commander in chief made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg News amid heightened tensions with the rogue regime.
“Most political people would never say that,” Trump continued, “but I’m telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.”
Kim Jong Un has never met with a foreign leader since he took office in 2011 after his father’s death.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week that the U.S. would be open to negotiating with North Korean but on the condition that the regime took steps to give up its weapons program.
When asked for clarification on Trump’s comments, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said “clearly the conditions are not there right now.”
Though Trump did not specify what the right circumstances would be, Spicer told reporters “we’ve got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down.”
Experts like Evans Revere, a former U.S. diplomat in South Korea, told Bloomberg it’s near “impossible to imagine” conditions being met that would allow a meeting between the two leaders to take place.
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“North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty when it was caught cheating, violated every one of the denuclearization commitments it made, and now threatens the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons,” he said, reports Bloomberg. “That’s hardly the basis for a presidential meeting with Kim Jong Un.”
Trump’s comments come as North Korea threatened to strengthen its nuclear force “to the maximum.”
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