ANKARA

A senior South Korean official said Saturday that a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the sidelines of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea “cannot be ruled out,” Yonhap News reported.

“As of now, it is difficult to say conclusively, but we cannot rule out the possibility (of a Trump-Kim meeting),” the official told reporters.

North Korea has given no indication Kim will attend, and Seoul has not invited him, as Pyongyang is not an APEC member.

Trump is expected to take part in the Oct. 31–Nov. 1 summit in the southeastern city of Gyeongju. Last month, he said he was willing to meet Kim “at some point” again, recalling their historic first-term summits, though he did not mention North Korea in his recent UN General Assembly address.

Trump and Kim met three times during his first term, including a 2019 meeting in the heavily militarized border area known as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. During the visit, Trump briefly stepped onto North Korean soil — a first for a sitting US president.

Earlier this week, Kim told a parliamentary session there was “no reason to avoid dialogue with the US” if Washington dropped its demand for denuclearization.

On Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told the UN General Assembly that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is unlikely in the short term and called for ending the “vicious cycle” of hostility and military tensions with Pyongyang.

The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the 1950–53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Writing by Islamuddin Sajid