• President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would “certainly” invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the US if the upcoming talks in Singapore go well.
  • Trump is set to meet with Kim at the Capella Hotel in Singapore on June 12.
  • The president has emphasized that the meeting is the first step in a “process” in which the US hopes to get North Korea to agree to full denuclearization.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would “certainly” invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the US if the upcoming talks in Singapore go well.

Trump also said he hopes to normalize relations with North Korea and that it’s “absolutely” possible an agreement could be signed to formally end the Korean War, which has technically been ongoing since the fighting stopped via an armistice in 1953.

“Normalizing relations is something that I would expect to do…There are a lot of good factors lined up for North Korea. … It has tremendous potential because the people are great, and we would certainly like to see normalization,” Trump said as he held a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump is set to meet with Kim at the Capella Hotel in Singapore on June 12. Many of the details surrounding the highly anticipated summit remain hazy, and the White House has sought to temper expectations of what might occur.

The president has emphasized that the meeting is the first step in a "process" in which the US hopes to get North Korea to agree to full denuclearization.

In recent weeks, it was unclear if the summit would even occur amid back and forth between the US and North Korea. Trump canceled the meeting in late May, only to announce it was back on last week after continued dialogue with Pyongyang.

If Trump does indeed invite Kim to the US, it would undoubtedly draw a significant level of domestic criticism given the long history of animosity between Washington and Pyongyang as well as the rampant human rights abuses in North Korea.