South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has appealed to US President Donald Trump to help advance dialogue with North Korea and work towards resolving issues surrounding Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, according to Lee’s office. The request came during a brief exchange between the two leaders on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France on Tuesday (June 16), where South Korea attended as a guest nation. According to a statement from Lee’s office, the South Korean president asked Trump to “take the lead in the peaceful resolution of the North Korean issue, just as he resolved the Middle East war.”
The conversation took place during a group photo session at the summit, highlighting Seoul’s continued interest in reviving diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang amid heightened regional tensions. The appeal follows a social media post by Trump earlier this week in which he shared a photograph of himself walking alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their 2018 summit in Singapore. The image prompted speculation about Washington’s future approach towards North Korea.
Trump met Kim three times during his first term in office in an effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. However, those talks ultimately failed to produce a lasting agreement on denuclearisation. Since then, Kim has strengthened ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, emerging as a key ally of Moscow in its war against Ukraine. North Korea has also accelerated its military build-up while rejecting efforts by Seoul to improve inter-Korean relations.