Trump says he will meet with Kim Jong Un this year
by Thomas Maresca · UPISEOUL, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year and claimed that Pyongyang currently has 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons.
Trump made the remarks during a press availability at a new helipad outside the White House, several hours after the United States and South Korea announced they would cut short their ongoing joint military drills in what has been widely seen as an effort by Trump to restart diplomacy with the North.
"Yeah, I will be," Trump told reporters when asked if he is expecting to meet Kim this year, without offering any further details.
Trump touted his personal relationship with the North Korean leader, saying it is a diplomatic asset and would help in dealing with the nuclear-armed regime.
"I get along with him," Trump said. "And you know what? The fact that I get along with him, that's a good thing, not a bad thing."
"He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons," he added, offering an unusually specific public estimate of the North Korean arsenal.
Trump went on to say that the North never should have been allowed to acquire nuclear weapons but claimed that the situation would be manageable under his leadership.
"I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he's going to be fine," Trump said. "As long as we have a smart president, he's going to be fine."
South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back on Thursday estimated that the North has a larger arsenal, citing a range of 80 to 120 nuclear weapons during a parliamentary session.
On Sunday, Trump called for the allies' joint military drills to be "substantially reduced" in a Truth Social post, saying they are expensive and "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea.
In response, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff on Wednesday announced that the two sides would cut short the ongoing joint military exercise by almost a week and reduce the scale of field training drills.
Late Wednesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed "respect" for Trump's decision to scale back the exercises, saying it reflects "deep deliberation to build peace on the Korean Peninsula, moving beyond hostility and confrontation."
"We hope that this decision by President Trump will lead to the establishment of a stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, through the building of trust and the resumption of dialogue between North Korea and the United States," Lee wrote on X.
North Korea, however, dismissed the decision as "unworthy of comment" and said Pyongyang had "no interest at all" in its significance.
In a commentary published in state-run media, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, rejected the notion that the reduction represented a goodwill gesture.
"If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get desired answer," she wrote.
Later Thursday, South Korea's military said Pyongyang fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, marking the North's third missile launch in less than two weeks.