Donald Trump Open to Talks with North Korea

Local Editor

Presumptive US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he is willing to meet North Korea's leader to discuss its nuclear program.

"I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him," the businessman said of Kim Jong-un.

Such a meeting would mark a significant change of US policy towards the politically isolated regime.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton decried Trump's "bizarre fascination with foreign strongmen".

The statement, delivered by one of her aides, added that Trump's foreign policy "made no sense".

In a separate interview with Fox News, Trump said he "absolutely had regrets" about his nine-month campaign, but that if had not conducted himself in the way he had, he would not have been successful.

Reports have it that Trump could visit the UK before the presidential election in November.

Diplomats expect his visit to the UK could happen after he formally becomes the Republican Party candidate at a convention in July.

Earlier this week Trump said "it looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship" with the UK.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and new London Mayor Sadiq Khan had harshly criticized Trump's proposed ban on Muslims coming to the US.

Trump's comments about North Korea emerged in an interview with Reuters news agency on Tuesday, in which he also expressed disapproval of Russian President Vladimir Putin's military actions in eastern Ukraine.

Putin is a figure who Trump has previously said he respects.

On the subject of North Korea, the New York property developer said he would pursue face-to-face talks and added that he would also put pressure on China, as North Korea's only major ally.

"I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China. People don't realize that," he said.

"China can solve that problem with one meeting or one phone call."

North Korea first tested nuclear weapons in 2006, in breach of international agreements, and has made repeated threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US.

Currently, any contact with the US happens between officials, not at a presidential level. The nations have no formal diplomatic relations.

Last month, Trump suggested the US should stop preventing its allies Japan and South Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons, directly contradicting long-standing US policy on non-proliferation.

In a presidential primary debate in 2007, Barack Obama was asked whether he would meet "without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?"

He answered: "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them - which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this [George W Bush] administration - is ridiculous."

In the Reuters interview, Trump also called for a renegotiation of the Paris climate agreement, in which more than 170 countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions.

And he said he would dismantle most of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations if he were elected president.

The Obama administration passed the regulations in 2010 to reduce risks to the US financial system and prevent a recurrence of the 2008 crisis.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team