U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview Tuesday that North Korea is interested in holding another summit, saying he would “certainly” agree as he believes it would be helpful towards improving relations.

His position follows repeated statements from North Korea’s foreign ministry since last week rejecting further talks with the U.S., and comes as his top negotiator on the DPRK began a series of high-level meetings in Seoul. 

Trump’s remarks were made in an interview at the White House with Gray Television host Greta Van Susteren due to air on Sunday, who mentioned the coronavirus situation in North Korea and asked the President whether he would meet DPRK leader Kim Jong Un again.

“Well, I understand they want to meet and we would certainly do that,” he responded, according to a transcript of the interview provided by Factba.se, a private firm dedicated to compiling all of Trump’s historical remarks.

Asked to clarify his point on a third official summit, he said “I would do it if I thought it was going to be helpful.”

Trump and Kim have met on three occasions before, first in Singapore in June 2018 where the two sides agreed to work towards better relations and North Korea’s denuclearization.

A second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 failed to produce any follow-up agreement or tangible progress, and an impromptu meeting at the inter-Korean border in June last year was similarly fruitless. 

Van Susteren pressed Trump in the interview Tuesday to elaborate on whether he thinks the summit would indeed be helpful, to which he said, “probably.”

“I have a very good relationship with him, probably would be [helpful] … I get along, we talk, and let’s see what happens. But we’ve done a great job and haven’t been given the credit we deserve.”

Asked about North Korea’s weapons developments in recent years, Trump said that “we’ll have to have very serious discussions and thought about that, because there could be some time when something’s going to happen.”

“But right now, we get along with him — Kim Jong Un. I have a good relationship with him,” he repeated.

“We haven’t lost anybody. We haven’t had anybody killed. And that’s okay with me. By the way, it’s 9,000 miles away. 9,000 miles away.”

Trump’s claims that North Korea is interested in setting up another summit, however, stand in stark contrast with language coming out of Pyongyang in recent days.

The highest level statement came from first vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui on Saturday, who called suggestions from the U.S. over further talks a “shallow trick” and “a tool for grappling its political crisis.”

“We have already worked out [a] detailed strategic timetable for putting under control the long-term threat from the U.S.,” she added, likely in reference to North Korea leader Kim Jong Un’s December promise to shift towards strategic weapons development following months of failed diplomacy with the U.S.

The North’s foreign ministry released another statement on Tuesday morning seeking to make their position even clearer: “Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with U.S.”

Around the same time as the interview in Washington on Tuesday local time, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was holding talks on the state of negotiations in Seoul.

Biegun arrived in the South Korean capital Tuesday and held talks with foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha and his counterpart on North Korean issues Lee Do-hoon on Wednesday morning.

He is scheduled to stay through Thursday before heading to Tokyo.

Edited by Oliver Hotham