Trump courts North Korean leader as he targets Iran

President Donald Trump has raised hopes at the United Nations that a second meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could occur “quite soon”, striking a conciliatory tone one year after he used his debut at the UN to deride the autocrat as “Little Rocket Man” and threaten to “totally destroy North Korea”.

Trump praised Kim as “very open” and “terrific” despite the glacial pace of progress toward denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula.

United States officials defended Trump’s strategy of engagement with Pyongyang as the President embarked on a week of meetings with world leaders. The softer tone toward North Korea — once threatened with “fire and fury” — has been replaced by rosy optimism, with Trump reserving tough rhetoric for another potential nuclear aspirant and strategic foe: Iran.

“It was a different world,” Trump said yesterday of his one-time moniker for the North Korean leader. “That was a dangerous time. This is one year later, a much different time.”

Trump was set to address the UN General Assembly today and will chair a meeting of the Security Council tomorrow on counterproliferation. In both venues, US officials say, he is expected to offer a contrast between the path of negotiation chosen by North Korea and that of Iran.

Trump earlier this year bucked allies and removed the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, citing Iran’s malign influence in the region and support for groups like Hizbollah. The next round of tough sanctions on Iran is set to go into effect in November.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is in New York to attend UN meetings. US officials said Trump is not seeking a meeting with the Iranian leader, but is not opposed to talking if Iran requests a session.

Rouhani, appearing on NBC yester- day, cited the threat of more US sanctions in stating, “There is no such programme for a meeting.”

Tensions between the US and Iran have been heightened since an attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran killed 25 people and injured more than 60 others.

Rouhani accused an unnamed USallied country in the Persian Gulf of being behind the terror attack.

But Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran should “look in the mirror” for the causes of the attack and that Rouhani had “oppressed his people for a long time”.