Trump gets letter from North Korea, says more talks likely

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from Kim Jong Un and predicted that the two leaders would have more talks to try resolving the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Trump has said he’s not bothered by the flurry of missiles that Kim has launched in recent days, rattling U.S. allies in the region. The president said they were all short-range missiles and reiterated that North Korea has never broken its pledge to pause nuclear tests.

Trump said Kim told him in the letter that he was upset about recent U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which North Korea sees as a threat.

The two leaders have met three times — in Singapore, Hanoi and the Korean Demilitarized Zone late last month — but no new talks have been scheduled. At their second meeting in Vietnam in February, Trump rejected Kim’s demand for widespread sanctions relief in return for dismantling the North’s main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.

Trump said he’d received the letter on Thursday. “It was hand-delivered. It wasn’t touched by anybody,” Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House.

“It was a very positive letter. I think we’ll have another meeting. He really wrote a beautiful, three-page letter … a really beautiful letter.”