President Trump said on Friday that he received a “really beautiful letter” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the latest development after a tumultuous two weeks in which North Korea fired off several ballistic missiles.
“I think we’ll have another meeting,” Trump said to reporters outside the White House. “He really wrote a beautiful three-page — I mean right from top to bottom — a really beautiful letter. And maybe I’ll release the results of the letter, but it was very positive.”
The North Korean regime has test-fired missiles on four separate occasions over the past two weeks, though Trump played down the tests as just “short-range missiles.” Trump also said Kim is “not happy” that the U.S. continues to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea.
“He wasn’t happy with the tests, the war games. The war games on the other side with the United States. And as you know, I’ve never liked it either,” Trump said. “I don’t like paying for it. We should be reimbursed for it, and I’ve told that to South Korea.”
The missile tests come just over a month after Trump and Kim met for the third time in June at the Demilitarized Zone where the pair agreed to resume stalled talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
But North Korea announced earlier this week that Kim oversaw a live-fire demonstration of the country’s latest short-range ballistic missiles in an attempt to warn the U.S. and South Korea over the joint exercises.
Those missiles can allegedly strike targets within South Korea and Japan and potentially attack U.S. military bases there as well.
