WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump said he would "most likely" meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again, while defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In an interview with Reuters, Mr Trump, who held a landmark summit with Mr Kim on June 12, said he believed North Korea had taken specific steps towards denuclearisation, despite widespread doubts about Mr Kim's willingness to abandon his arsenal.

Mr Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years.

"I stopped (North Korea's) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Korea's) missile testing. Japan is thrilled. What's going to happen?... We're going to see," he said.

At their summit in Singapore, Mr Kim agreed in broad terms to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but North Korea has given no indication that it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Mr Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.

In the interview on Monday, Mr Trump credited his "great chemistry" with Mr Kim for easing a nuclear stand-off that last year raised fears of a new Korean war. Asked whether another meeting with Mr Kim was on the horizon, Mr Trump said: "It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment."

Asked whether North Korea had taken specific steps to denuclearise other than blowing up its main nuclear bomb test site ahead of the summit, Mr Trump said: "I do believe they have." But he did not elaborate. He also mentioned North Korea's pre-summit handover of three American detainees.

REUTERS