U.S. President Donald Trump once again took North Korea's nuclear weapon possession as a given on the 29th (local time).
[Donald / U.S. President : Kim Jong-un has nuclear capabilities. Considerable nuclear capabilities. Not as much as we have, but he has nuclear capabilities.]
He then called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a "friend,"
[Donald / U.S. President : Kim Jong-un is my friend. He likes Trump. Probably the only person in the world he likes is me.]
and claimed there would be no problems with North Korea while he is president.
When asked why North Korea is allowed to have nuclear weapons while Iran is not, he shifted the blame to the preceding Biden administration.
[Donald / U.S. President : That's an interesting question. You know why? Because the president was someone else (Biden). He could have been stopped back then, but he wasn't.]
Trump's remarks came just a day after North Korea claimed in its UN General Assembly speech that its status as a nuclear-armed state is irreversible.
[Kim Son-gyong / North Korean Vice Foreign Minister (U.S. local time on the 28th) : We reaffirm the official position of the government of the Republic that the status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a nuclear-armed state can never be reversed under any circumstances or by anything.]
Last month, Trump also ordered a significant scale-back of South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, and subsequently specified the number of North Korean nuclear weapons as 57.
This is interpreted as his willingness to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un without the precondition of "denuclearization."
With the Korean Peninsula issue also discussed at the U.S.-China summit last week, attention is focusing on whether a North Korea-U.S. summit could take place during the APEC summit in China in November.
Meanwhile, the U.S. outlet NK News reported through satellite image analysis that construction to build a new annex at the Yongbyon uranium enrichment facility is proceeding rapidly.
NK News reported that this construction is being rushed right after leader Kim Jong-un ordered an exponential increase in nuclear weapons last June.
"Kim Jong-un Likes Me"... Blaming Biden for 'Nuclear Possession' (September 30, 2026, 8 News)
(Reported by Kwak Sang-eun | Produced by Bae Jun-hwi | Video Editing by Cho Mu-hwan | Design by Hwang Se-yeon | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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