00:00South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said on Friday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump
00:05clearly wants to maintain dialogue with Pyongyang and that he was urging him to do so.
00:11Lee told reporters that Seoul was continuing preliminary coordination efforts to facilitate
00:16talks between North Korea and the United States, adding that arranging a meeting between Trump
00:21and Kim Jong-un is difficult, but not impossible. The U.S. president announced in August that he
00:26intended to meet with the North Korean leader later this year, once again drawing on what he
00:31labels a great relationship they share. The meeting, if it materializes, would be their first since
00:382019, where they met in Singapore during Trump's first presidential term. Lee also told the media
00:44that South Korea would not deploy troops to the Middle East in a way that could embroil them into
00:49war, despite relentless pressure from Trump.
01:08The announcement is likely to rock already fragile relations between Washington and Seoul
01:13after Trump ordered a dramatic scaling back of planned joint military exercises recently,
01:19using Lee's refusal to assist in the war as a primary reason.
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