Donald Trump has said that he wants to meet Kim Jong Un during his trip to Asia

Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to Asia.

“I will. If you want to say the word, I’m willing to do it,” the US president told reporters aboard Air Force One as he departed for the region, adding that he has a “great relationship” with Kim.

Trump made history during his first term, becoming the first US president to set foot in North Korea 2019 when they last shook hands.

During his trip to Malaysia and Japan, he will meet with a number of world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, trade negotiations that began after Trump imposed massive tariffs earlier this year.

Trump has taken an unusual view of North Korea – a secretive communist totalitarian state largely isolated globally – and its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, initially taunting Kim as “little rocket man”.

The pair met face-to-face three times during Trump’s previous tenure in the White House but were unable to agree on a denuclearization program. North Korea has since conducted several tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles, its neighbors say.

Asked whether he would recognize North Korea as a nuclear nation, Trump told reporters late Thursday: “I think they’re kind of a nuclear … they’ve got a lot of nuclear weapons, I’ll say that.”

Kim has said he is ready to meet Trump again if the US stops pursuing his “foolish” demand that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.

“I still have a good memory of President Trump,” Kim said in a speech last month, according to state media.

Chung Dong-young, South Korea’s unification minister who handles relations between the North and the South, said it was highly likely that the two leaders would meet when Trump is in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

A senior US official told reporters, according to Anadolu Agency, that the meeting was not on Trump’s schedule – although their last meeting in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas followed an invitation from Trump on social media.

Trump’s first stop will be in Malaysia, where he will attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

They are expected to land in the South Korean city of Busan ahead of the Apec summit on Wednesday.

He will meet with South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung, who visited the White House in August to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting.

Lee told the BBC he was open to a deal between Trump and Kim In which North Korea agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons.

Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi comes against the backdrop of a trade war between the two nations.

The two have agreed to end the triple-digit tariffs they threatened against each other while demanding a trade deal – but that is in jeopardy after Trump said he would impose 100% trade tariffs on Chinese goods to curb Beijing’s rare earth exports.

Minerals are essential for many electronics, and China currently accounts for about 90% of their exports in their refined form.