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A summit between the United States and North Korea appears possible “at any time” as signs have emerged of dialogue between the two sides, a lawmaker citing South Korea’s spy agency said on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump said last month he plans to again meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but the public response from Pyongyang has been mostly muted and analysts were sceptical of imminent talks.
“Regarding the North Korea-US summit, there was an analysis that it should be viewed as possible at any time,” South Korean lawmaker Youn Kun-young told reporters, citing a briefing by the National Intelligence Service.
“It was stated that while no facts regarding concrete contact between the two sides have been presented, there are signs of dialogue,” he added.
Trump, eyeing a revived bond he claims to have with Kim, also said in August it was important to “get along” with the North Korean leader, adding that Pyongyang now had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.
The North has since said Kim had “good memories and feelings” about Trump and that the relationship between the two leaders remains “excellent” but did not clearly respond to the US president’s overtures.
Trump’s comments floating a new meeting were accompanied by Washington scaling back joint US-South Korean military drills in August.
That move alarmed Washington’s Asian allies, while sparking speculation that he was seeking a foreign policy win as the Iran war stalls.
Ballistic missiles
Hours after Trump’s August remarks that it was important to get along with Kim, North Korea fired more than 10 short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area.
Then Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, said Trump’s decision to scale back the drills with South Korea was Seoul’s “comeuppance.”
Separate maritime exercises set to begin on 7 September between the United States and allies South Korea and Japan have also drawn an angry response from Pyongyang.
Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies, noted Moscow-backed Pyongyang appears to have little motivation to seek US talks.
“From North Korea’s perspective, as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Russia-Ukraine war and the deepening confrontation with South Korea, the US and Japan on one side and North Korea, China and Russia on the other, there appears to be little incentive for dialogue,” he added.
Trump met Kim three times during his first term, once declaring they were “in love,” in high-profile summits aimed at securing a denuclearisation deal, but no tangible progress was made.
The US president even bucked decades of US policy by stating North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power” in October 2025.
But Trump’s comment at the time, that he was “100 percent” open to meeting Kim again, have gone unanswered.
China, Washington’s chief geopolitical rival, has also been a major North Korean trading partner and a key source of diplomatic and economic support for the country, hit by multiple international sanctions.
South Korea’s dovish President Lee Jae-myung has pursued engagement with the North since taking office in June 2025, in contrast to his hardline predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol.
But Pyongyang has rejected his overtures, labelling Seoul its “most hostile” enemy and declaring itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.
Additional sources • AFP