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US President Donald Trump presides over a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Dec. 2. (AP)

US President Donald Trump announced that he had received a personal letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Jan. 2, reconfirming his intention to soon hold a second summit with Kim.

“I just got a great letter from Kim Jong-un,” Trump was quoted as saying during a Cabinet meeting held at the White House on Wednesday in an AFP report. Trump held up an A4-sized piece of paper. Trump also said he really wanted to read the letter out loud to the cabinet but didn’t actually do so. The time and method of the letter’s delivery and the details of its content haven’t been made public.

“We’ll probably now have another meeting. He’d like to meet, I’d like to meet,” Trump was quoted as saying by Reuters. “We’ll set [. . .] up [the summit], we’ll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future.”

Reuters also quoted Trump as saying, “I’m not in any rush. I don’t have to rush. All I know is there’s no rockets, there’s no testing.” These remarks reiterate Trump’s plan to slow things down by continuing to push for a second North Korea-US summit, but on his own timetable.

“Many people have asked how we are doing in our negotiations with North Korea – I always reply by saying we are in no hurry,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Dec. 14.

During the cabinet meeting, Trump said there would’ve been a war if he hadn’t met with Kim in June 2018. “We've established a very good relationship, we’re given no credit for it,” Trump said. “Frankly [. . .] if another administration came in instead of this administration [. . .] you'd be having a nice, big, fat war in Asia,” he said, emphasizing his achievements.

Emphasizing that North Korea had “tremendous” potential, Trump said, “We have somebody who I really think wants to get on to economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country [. . .] We’ll help them out too.”

During his New Year’s address on Jan. 1, Kim Jong-un reconfirmed his commitment to denuclearization and declared his readiness to meet Trump at any time. The following day, Trump posted on Twitter that “I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential!”

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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