President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un an "excellent" letter, the North's state-run news agency reported on Sunday, quoting Kim as saying he would "seriously contemplate it."
The White House declined to confirm that Donald Trump had sent a letter to Kim Jong Un.
The US is demanding North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons entirely before international sanctions are lifted. North Korea is seeking a step-by-step approach in which moves toward denuclearization are matched by concessions from the US, notably a relaxation of the sanctions.
Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency reported Kim Jong saying, "the letter is of excellent content."
"Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content," the agency said, without elaborating.
South Korea's presidential office said that it sees the exchange of letters between Kim Jong and Donald Trump as a positive development for keeping the momentum for dialogue alive.
Donald Trump's letter also came days after Kim Jong Un's summit with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, which experts say underscored China's emergence as a major player in the diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff with the North.
North Korean state media said Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping discussed the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and reached unspecified consensus on important issues.
Xi Jinping is expected to meet with Donald Trump next week in Japan during the G-20 summit. Analysts say he could pass him a message from Kim Jong Un about the nuclear negotiations.
Kim Jong Un said during his New Year's speech that he would seek a "new way" if the United States persists with sanctions and pressure against North Korea. After the collapse of his meeting with Donald Trump in Hanoi, Kim Jong Un said Washington has until the end of the year to offer mutually acceptable terms for a deal to salvage the negotiations.
Following a provocative run in weapons tests, Kim Jong Un initiated negotiations with Seoul and Washington in 2018, which led to three summits with South Korea's president and his first with Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12 last year, when they issued a vague statement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing how and when it would occur. The lack of substance and fruitless working-level talks set up the breakdown of Kim Jong Un's second meeting with Donald Trump, which the Americans blamed on excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for only a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
Nuclear negotiations have been at a standstill since then, but on the eve of the anniversary of the Singapore summit, Donald Trump told US reporters that he received a "beautiful" letter from Kim Jong Un, without revealing what was written.
In an interview with TIME magazine last week, Donald Trump said that he also received a "birthday letter" from Kim Jong Un that was delivered by hand a day before.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un also exchanged letters in 2018 after their first summit. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at the time that the letters addressed their commitment to work toward North Korea's "complete denuclearization."
In September 2018, Donald Trump told a cheering crowd at a campaign rally in West Virginia that Kim Jong Un "wrote me beautiful letters and they're great letters. We fell in love."
Analysts say the gesture of sending letters is part of North Korean efforts to present Kim Jong Un as a legitimate international statesman who is reasonable and capable of negotiating solutions and making deals.
Because of the weight of formality they provide, Kim Jong Un might see personal letters as an important way to communicate with leaders of countries the North never had close ties with, they say.
