It is unclear if Trump (pictured yesterday), who was speaking at the Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday, was being serious or merely joking
President Donald Trump said the United States will be meeting with North Korea during a joke-filled monologue at a dinner with journalists.
But it is unclear if Trump, who was speaking at the Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday, was being serious or merely joking.
‘Now we are talking and they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago,’ Trump said of North Korea.
‘They said that “we would like to talk.”
‘And I said: “So would we, but you have to denuke, you have to denuke”,’ Trump told attendees at the annual Gridiron Club dinner.
‘We will be meeting and we’ll see if anything positive happens,’ he added.
‘I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t,’ he said, referring to North Korea’s dictator.
It comes as the foreign ministry spokesman for North Korea said it would speak with the US to ‘resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way’ through dialogue and negotiation’.
The Korean Central News Agency also reported that the official said there should be no preconditions for talks.
The spokesman was quoted as saying: ‘In the decades-long history of the DPRK-US talks, there has been no case at all where we sat with the US with any precondition, and this will be the case in future too,’ he said.
Trump joked: ‘I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t.’ Pictured: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un
Trump said North Korea must ‘denuke’ if talks are to go ahead. pictured: The launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile in July last year, which was condemned around the world
If a meeting were to come together, it would be the first between the Trump administration and Pyongyang, which are in a standoff over North’s development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States. Pictured: A drill held by the belligerent dictatorship last year
He said the precondition of denuclearisation is ‘more than ridiculous’ and said the US is ‘terrified’ of North Korea’s nuclear development.
At the Gridiron dinner, Trump was also heard joking at his own expense while discussing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
‘As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine,’ Trump said.
If a meeting were to come together, it would be the first between the Trump administration and Pyongyang, which are in a standoff over North’s development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States.
Trump and Melania are seen at the Gridiron dinner on Saturday in a photo snapped discreetly from the audience. The event was closed to cameras, but accounts of his remarks emerged
Trump’s remarks came shortly before South Korea’s presidency announced on Sunday that a high-level delegation of South Korean officials will travel to North Korea on Monday to discuss improving relations on the peninsula and possible talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
After the two-day visit to North Korea, the special envoys will travel to the United States to brief officials on their discussions in Pyongyang, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said.
Last month, US Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, US officials said in February.
They said the North Koreans had walked away after Pence condemned North Korean human rights abuses and announced plans for new economic sanctions.
Signs of a North-South thaw have prompted speculation that it could lead to direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang after months of tension and exchanges of insults between Trump and Kim, that have fuelled fears of war.
North Korea has refrained from carrying out any weapons tests since late November, when it tested its largest intercontinental ballistic missile.
Trump’s remarks on North Korea came toward the end of a 30-minute speech in his first press dinner since taking office 13 months ago.
Gridiron Club members don wigs and costumes to perform satirical skits skewering the president and Washington political class, a tradition dating back to 1885.
Presidents typically deliver a humorous speech at the event and do not disclose new policy initiatives.
Trump rattled off a series of jokes that got plenty of laughs, skewering members of his own Cabinet like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who were all present in the Washington hotel ballroom.