Trump says next meeting with North Korea's Kim likely in early 2019

Three sites for the meeting are under consideration

-- AFP PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2018 --

US President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he meets with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have become on June 12 the first sitting US and North Korean leaders to meet, shake hands and negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off. - 
 / AFP / SAUL LOEB
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US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he thinks he will next meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January or February and that three sites for the meeting are under consideration.

Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from Argentina he thinks the meeting will be in early 2019.

"We're getting along very well. We have a good relationship," the president said, adding that at some point he will invite Mr Kim to the United States.

The two sides have been engaged in talks on the leaders’ second meeting after the first, unprecedented, one in Singapore in June, Reuters reported in October, citing a senior official.

Mr Trump's statement follows the abrupt cancellation in November of plans to meet a top North Korean official in New York, the latest twist in diplomatic efforts to secure a potentially landmark peace deal.

State Department officials gave no reason for the delay, although North Korea had stepped up its demands that America lift sanctions on Pyongyang.

North Korea said last month that it would "seriously" consider returning to a state policy aimed at building nuclear weapons unless Washington lifts sanctions.

"The improvement of relations and sanctions are incompatible," said a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

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