President Trump questioned the veracity of a partly-debunked report out of South Korea stating that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un had purged several of his top officials.
Reporters questioned Trump on Wednesday in Ireland, where he is meeting with state officials on his first official visit to the United Kingdom. One reporter asked if the president was worried about reports that Kim Jong Un was executing top North Korean officials.
“They like to blame Kim Jong Un immediately, but they said he was [Kim Hyok Chol], and he wasn’t. He was at the theater the other night,” Trump told reporters in Ireland, where he is meeting state officials during his visit to the U.K.
“The other four people I know nothing about. But it is an interesting situation. I think that they would like to make a deal and we would like to make a deal with them. We’ll see how it goes. It has been going pretty well because there hasn’t been testing of anything major and, frankly, there’s been no nuclear testing in a long period of time,” Trump continued.
North Korea conducted several missile tests in May, triggering alarm from some experts and security officials. Others, including Trump, have downplayed the missile tests as a call for attention.
The Seoul-based newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported in May that North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, Kim Jong Un’s chief nuclear negotiator, after talks broke down at the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi.
Kim Hyok Chol and several other top officials were thought to be either executed or imprisoned in a purge that wiped out officials involved with the failed summit. The report was undermined June 2 after Kim Hyok Chol’s name appeared on a roster of officials attending a theater performance with Kim Jong Un. Kim Hyok Chol was also seen in some recent photos with Kim Jong Un.
