"Kim Jong-un Likes Me"... Blames Biden for North Korea's Nuclear Arms

[Anchor]

While tensions between the two Koreas are running high due to a North Korean landmine incident, U.S. President Donald Trump has once again flaunted his close ties with Kim Jong-un. Calling Kim a friend, he also made remarks acknowledging North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons.

Reporter Gwak Sang-eun has the details.

[Reporter]

U.S. President Donald Trump once again took North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons as a given on the 29th, local time.

[Donald Trump / U.S. President: Kim Jong-un has nuclear capabilities. Substantial nuclear capabilities. Not as much as us, but he has nuclear capabilities.]

Calling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a "friend,"

[Donald Trump / U.S. President: Kim Jong-un is my friend. He likes Trump. I'm probably the only person in the world he likes.]

He also claimed that there would be no problems with North Korea while he is president.

When asked why Iran is not allowed to have nuclear weapons while North Korea is, he shifted the blame to the previous Biden administration.

[Donald Trump / U.S. President: That's an interesting question. You know why? Because the president was someone else (Biden). They could have stopped him back then, but they didn't.]

Trump's remarks came just a day after North Korea claimed in a UN General Assembly speech that its status as a nuclear-armed state is irreversible.

[Kim Son-gyong / North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs (U.S. local time, 28th): We would like to 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 is irreversible under any circumstances and by anything.]

Last month, Trump also ordered a significant scale-back of South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, followed by specifying the number of North Korean nuclear weapons at 57.

This is interpreted as an intent 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.-based NK News reported through satellite image analysis that construction work to build a new annex at the Yongbyon uranium enrichment facility is proceeding rapidly.

NK News reported that the construction is being rushed right after leader Kim Jong-un ordered an exponential increase in nuclear weapons in June.

[Video Editing: Cho Moo-hwan, Design: Hwang Se-yeon]
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.