Biden states circumstances in which he would meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un

During a joint press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, President Biden described the preconditions under which he would consider meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Video transcript

- You have said in the past that you would not meet with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea without certain preconditions.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yes.

- What are those preconditions, and do you believe he would ever be able to meet them?

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, what I never do is I never make a judgment with a man or woman is gonna do or not do based on what they said. We'll see, if he made any commitment then I would meet with them and if there was a commitment in which we met, and the commitment has to be that there's discussion about his nuclear arsenal. And if it's merely an a means by which how do we de-escalate what they're doing. And so if that was the case, I would not meet unless there was some outline made my Secretary of State, and others would have negotiated as to how we would proceed.

But what I would not do is I would not do what had been done in the recent past, I would not give him all that he's looking for is national or international recognition, his legitimists and say and give them what allowed him to move in the direction of appearing to be more-- how can I say it, more serious about what he wasn't all serious about. I'd have to know specifics, but the idea of never meeting with North Korea-- I would make sure that my team had met with his counterpart their counterparts, and I know exactly what we're meeting now.