Trump plans meeting with Kim Jong Un, says North Korea has 57 ‘very powerful’ nukes

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year, as he highlighted Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and said the country now has 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.

Trump made the remarks at the White House when asked whether he would meet Kim in 2026.

“Yeah, I will be,” Trump said, without providing details of the planned meeting. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Trump is considering meeting Kim during a November trip to Shenzhen, China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

“It was important to ‘get along’ with Kim,” Trump said, adding that the North Korean leader has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons.”

Trump said he had developed a good relationship with Kim during his first term, when the two leaders met three times. Their last meeting was in 2019, and they have yet to meet during Trump’s second term.

South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back, however, gave a significantly higher estimate of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal on Thursday, telling lawmakers that Seoul believes Pyongyang possesses between 80 and 120 nuclear weapons.

“We usually estimate it to be around 80 to 120,” Ahn said, while declining to provide a more specific figure.

Ahn said South Korea remains opposed to officially recognising North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state and rejected the suggestion that Washington had abandoned its goal of denuclearising Pyongyang.

Trump’s renewed focus on North Korea comes after he ordered the United States to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, describing the drills as “very insulting” to Kim.

Trump said Kim had been “very well behaved” and defended his decision to pursue dialogue with the North Korean leader, even as the United States remains engaged in its war with Iran over concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Trump and Kim’s first-term summits generated global attention but failed to produce a lasting agreement on North Korea’s nuclear programme. Trump has nevertheless continued to portray his relationship with Kim as unusually close, once saying the two leaders had “fell in love” after exchanging letters.

Kim’s sister says she knows nothing of contact

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, said Wednesday that she was unaware of any recent communication between her brother and Trump.

“Regarding the recent news from Washington about communication between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, I am completely unaware of it,” she said in a statement.

She nevertheless said Kim retained “good memories and feelings” about Trump and described the relationship between the two leaders as “excellent.”

Her comments came after Seoul announced that the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises with the United States would end about a week earlier than originally planned, at Washington’s suggestion.

The Pentagon said the shortened exercises would not affect US training objectives.

North Korea has long condemned the drills as preparations for an invasion. The United States maintains about 28,500 troops in South Korea under the security arrangement established after the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.