South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday that US President Donald Trump clearly wants dialogue with Pyongyang and confirmed Seoul will not be deploying troops to intervene militarily in the Iran war.
Trump, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have forged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term, said last month that he plans to meet Kim later this year.
The US president also said it was important to "get along" with Kim, adding that Pyongyang now had 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons. Seoul says there are around 80-120.
North Korea, which has secured critical backing from Russia in recent years, did not clearly respond to Trump's overtures.
Lee said Friday it was "clear" that "Trump wants dialogue, and I am also urging President Trump to engage in dialogue."
South Korea -- which Pyongyang has repeatedly labelled as its enemy -- was continuing "preliminary coordination efforts" to facilitate dialogue between North Korea and the United States, Lee told reporters at the presidential Blue House.
He added that such a meeting "remains difficult, ... but is not impossible."
"I cannot say for certain how likely it is, but it is also clear that we must make every possible effort to turn that possibility into reality," he said.
Lee's comment came hours after the North Korean leader's powerful sister accused the United States of escalating regional tensions through frequent military drills and warned of a "more offensive" response from Pyongyang.
A day before, Kim Yo Jong said only 'idiots' think North Korea will give up its nukes.
Korea and the United States last month held a shorter edition of their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises, following an order from Trump to scale them back.
- 'No, Thank you' -
The South Korean President also said that Seoul will not deploy troops to intervene militarily in the Iran war.
"There will be no involvement or intervention in the war. We will not deploy troops or military assets in that manner," said Lee.
Lee's answer follows reports that Seoul was weighing a possible deployment to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key flashpoint in the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran.
He added that South Korea will "carry out the minimum necessary activities," to protect their own merchant ships and oil shipping routes.
Lee reiterated three times that South Korea would not deploy troops in a way that could lead to military intervention.
"We have upheld the principle of non-involvement and non-intervention in the war until now," he said.
"And we will continue to uphold it going forward."
Trump complained in an interview late last month that Washington had received "very little help" from other countries, singling out South Korea -- its key security ally in Asia -- as an example.
"We help them, but when it came to helping us, I didn't put on a heavy sell; But I just said, 'Would you like to participate?'" Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
"And they all said, 'No, thank you.' And I said, 'I'm going to remember that to myself,'" he added.
The United States stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country's defences, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
However, Trump's repeated criticism of time-honoured alliances has cast doubt on US commitments to security in East Asia.
Kim’s sister threatens 'more offensive' response
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister accused the United States of escalating regional tensions through frequent military drills and warned of a "more offensive" response from Pyongyang, according to a statement published by state media Friday.
The comments came amid an escalation in rhetoric from Pyongyang, even as US President Donald Trump has sought to revive diplomacy and improve ties with North Korea but received little response to his overtures.
"The present situation, in which new records are set in terms of practical action hostile toward the DPRK, stresses the need to break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature," Kim Yo Jong said, using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, according to her statement carried by KCNA news agency.
Describing joint military drills held in recent months by US forces and allies in the Asia-Pacific region as a "US-led war rehearsal," Kim vowed that "our will to defend our sovereignty will be expressed in clearer action and there will be never ever change in the course of intensifying the nuclear war deterrence."
"I remind the enemy once again that if it is judged that the supreme interests of our nation and its military sovereignty and security environment in the region have been seriously violated by their military maneuvers," Kim went on, North Korea's military will "mobilize all means available to cope with it."
In a sharply-worded statement a day earlier, Kim mocked those who wish to see North Korea abandon its nuclear program.
"The DPRK's position as a nuclear weapons state is absolute which can not reverse with anything," she said.
The statement came during a general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, with Kim dismissing "familiar silly talk" of efforts to denuclearise the North.
"If they believe that it is really possible, they will only hear the word of idiots," she said.
North Korea has legally enshrined its status as a nuclear weapons state, with its leadership declaring the country's nuclear arsenal permanent and irreversible.
Trump recently said Pyongyang possesses 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons, with Seoul putting the figure at between 80 and 120.
The North's nuclear arsenal has expanded since a second summit between Kim and Trump collapsed in 2019 over what Pyongyang would receive in return for taking steps towards denuclearisation.