Trump hopes for Kim meeting to secure end to North Korea's nuclear programme

Donald Trump has said he wants to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in an attempt to revive the failed nuclear diplomacy of his first term as US president.

- Justin McCurry

"I'd like to have a meeting. I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong-un in the appropriate future," Trump said during an occasionally awkward meeting at the Oval Office with South Korea's new president, Lee Jae Myung, in which he raised the prospect of taking ownership of Korean land that hosts a US military base.

Trump, who met Kim three times during his first term, hailed his relationship with the totalitarian leader and said he knew him "better than anybody, almost, other than his sister" - a reference to Kim's younger sibling and confidante Kim Yo-jong.

"Someday I'll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me," Trump said, adding that he hoped the talks would take place this year.

Lee said the US president, who has attempted to bring peace to disputes in Ukraine and the Middle East, was the "only person" who could end the decades-old standoff between South and North Korea, whose three-year war in the early 1950s ended in a truce but not a peace treaty.

Lee said: "I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong-un and construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf."