A top North Korean diplomat who defected last year says strongman Kim Jong-un wants to meet with Donald Trump, but he's urging the newly-installed commander-in-chief not to do it.
Kim sees it as "a good opportunity for him to open a kind of compromise with the new American administration," Thae Yong Ho, who was number two in the North Korean embassy in London until he and his family fled last August, told CNN.
And while Trump has said in the past he would be open to meeting Kim, Thae says it would give the North Korean leader legitimacy he currently doesn't have in his own country.
"Even Chinese President Xi Jinping and even Russian President Putin — they haven't even met Kim Jong Un," he says.
In addition, Kim has no intention of giving up his country's growing nuclear arsenal, according to Thae.
"As long as Kim Jong Un is in power, there'll be no chance for the world to improve the human rights issue" or cancel "the nuclear program," he said.
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