South Korea’s Lee praises Trump, hopes US can resume North Korea dialogue

By Ju-min Park and Joyce Lee

SEOUL, Dec 3 (Reuters) – South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Wednesday that he had found it “interesting and entertaining” speaking with Donald Trump during recent meetings and remained hopeful that the U.S. leader could persuade North Korea to resume dialogue.

Since Lee took office in June, he has had two summits with Trump and finalised a trade deal that includes a $350 billion U.S. investment package after months of negotiations.

Lee has launched charm offensives in a bid to manage the high-stakes relationship with Seoul’s main ally, praising Trump for his “peacemaker” role on North Korea and presenting him with a replica of a gold crown on a trip to South Korea.

“I found my conversations with President Trump quite interesting and entertaining. Perhaps I felt a sense of kinship,” Lee told a press conference with foreign media on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of a martial law crisis.

Lee called Trump “a realist, pragmatist, and master of dealmaking who respects his counterparts”.

The South Korean president remained hopeful Trump could entice North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un to resume dialogue, saying Pyongyang appeared to take Washington more seriously than Seoul to sustain its regime.

The two Koreas remain technically at war and North Korea has rebuffed conciliatory gestures since Lee pledged to re-engage with Pyongyang to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“During the recent APEC meeting, U.S. President Trump wanted and hoped to meet Chairman Kim Jong Un but that did not work out,” Lee said, referring to a regional bloc gathering South Korea hosted a month ago.

“But circumstances are always changing, so we will do our best to create environments that allow for communication,” he said.

Trump and Kim held summits in 2018 and 2019 before negotiations broke down over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The South Korean leader, who says he pursues “pragmatic diplomacy”, also spoke fondly about a meeting last month he had with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“My meeting with President Xi Jinping was very interesting. He was surprisingly good at making jokes,” Lee said, recalling his first summit meeting with Xi.

Xi presented Lee a pair of Xiaomi smartphones during their meeting. When the South Korean president had examined one of the boxes and jokingly asked about communication security, Xi responded by asking Lee to “check if there’s a backdoor”, sparking laughter in the room.

Lee said on Wednesday that the stable management of ties with China, South Korea’s top trading partner, was important and that he hoped to visit Beijing soon for another summit with Xi.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Ed Davies and Michael Perry)