Trump says he is open to talks with N. Koreans

President sticks to “firm stance” but says peaceful solution “a great thing”

President Donald Trump on Saturday said he remains open to direct talks with North Korea’s regime over its nuclear program and added that he hopes the rogue Asian nation participates in the Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea next month.

“Sure, I always believe in talking,” Trump said during a news conference at Camp David, where he was meeting with Republican congressional leaders over the GOP’S 2018 agenda. “But we have a very firm stance . ... But I absolutely would do that.”

Asked if has no prerequisites to bilateral talks — past U.S. presidents have demanded the North be committed to denuclearization --- Trump said Pyongyang knows that he is “not messing around” in his past statements that he will protect the United States and its allies against attacks from the North.

“At the same time, if we can come up with a very peaceful and a very good solution . ... If something happens and something comes out of those talks, that would be a great thing for all humanity, it would be a great thing for all the world,” Trump said.

Trump has engaged in a continuing war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un over the countries’ nuclear arsenals. Trump recently tweeted that his nuclear button is “much bigger & more powerful” than Kim’s, after the North’s leader boasted about having a button on his desk at the ready.

Even as he seemed to offer an opening to Pyongyang, the president appeared to suggest he remains ready to use military force if necessary: “You have to be prepared to do certain things, and I’m totally prepared to do them.”

Trump has vacillated between threats and offers of talks. Last spring he said he’d be open to talks but then shifted after North Korea continued its nuclear tests and after Otto Warmbier, an American student, died after his release from captivity.