President Donald Trump extended what he claimed was a spontaneous invitation to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un for a handshake on the highly fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone, lending his upcoming visit to Seoul new drama.
In a Saturday morning tweet from his hotel in Japan, Trump said if Kim was interested he'd be open to a greeting on the border.
"If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!" Trump wrote.
Trump is due to arrive in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday evening, and is scheduled for talks with the South Korean President on Sunday before returning to Washington.
During a brief photo-op with reporters Saturday, Trump said he "put out a feeler" to Kim for a potential handshake on the DMZ in order to advance their warm friendship.
"All I did was put out a feeler if he'd like to meet," Trump told reporters in Japan, where he is meeting with leaders on the sidelines of the G20. "He sent me a very beautiful birthday card."
The invitation carried some of the hallmarks of Trump's past meetings with Kim, namely the heightened drama and spectacle over whether the meeting would take place. But those meetings were planned well in advance, preceded by lower-level talks between US and North Korean officials.
This session appears more ad-hoc, at least in Trump's telling. He said he wasn't sure whether the meeting would materialize, but expressed confidence his diplomatic opening with North Korea was already yielding results.
"I just put out a feeler because I don't know where he is right now. He may not be in North Korea," Trump said. "I said if Chairman Kim would want to meet, I'll be at the border. We seem to get along really well. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. For the stupid people who say, 'Oh, he gets along,' it's good get along."
"Frankly, if I didn't become president, you'd be having a war right now with North Korea," Trump said.
"I will be in South Korea. I let him know, and we'll see. We'll see each other for two minutes. That's all we can. But that will be fine," Trump said.
Last week, a South Korea official said t he President was considering a visit to the DMZ . He last attempted to visit the border zone during a visit to Seoul in 2017, but plans were scrapped due to heavy fog.
If he goes, he'll follow in the footsteps of his most recent predecessors, who journeyed to the border zone to peer into North Korea through binoculars.
Trump's last summit meeting with Kim collapsed when the two sides could not agree on terms for curbing North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Since then, talks have been sporadic between Washington and Pyongyang. But there have been glimmers of progress in a letter exchange between Kim and Trump, including birthday greetings for the US President earlier this month.
