Donald Trump has said he would be “100% open” to meeting Kim Jong Un during his visit to Asia.

The US president said he gets along “very well” with his North Korean counterpart when asked by reporters aboard Air Force One, encouraging them to “spread the word.”

In 2019Mister Triumph He became the first sitting American president to cross the border into North Korea during his first term.

The two have not met since and the White House said nothing is planned for Trump’s five-day trip to Asia, where he will meet with the leaders of Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.

Mister Kim said last month that he still has “Good personal memories” of Trump and that there is “no reason not to” resume talks with the United States if it “abandons” what he called a “delusional obsession” with wanting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Since then, Kim has accelerated the expansion of a nuclear-capable missile arsenal and strengthened his position by aligning himself with Russia in its war in Ukraine and strengthening relations with China.

While some experts predict that a meeting between Kim and Trump is not likely, others predict that the pair will eventually sit down for talks in the coming months.

“We should see that the prospects for their meeting have increased,” Ban Kil Joo, an assistant professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul, told the Associated Press.

He cited the recent suspension of civilian travel to the southern side of Panmunjom and Kim’s comments about a possible return to talks.

Professor Ban said Kim would likely determine whether to resume diplomacy with the US president when he holds a major ruling party conference, scheduled for January.

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Chung Jin-young, former dean of South Korea’s Kyung Hee University, said: “If a meeting with Kim Jong Un happens, Trump would brag about it and boast that he is the one who can also solve the problems of the Korean peninsula, so he has something to gain.

“But would the United States have anything substantial to give Kim Jong Un in return?”

Koh Yu-hwan, former president of South Korea’s National Unification Institute, agreed, saying that to secure a meeting, Trump would have to bring “something attractive to the table this time.”