Washington DC - US President Donald Trump said Monday he hoped to meet again with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea's dovish new leader that got off awkwardly.

Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Trump took to social media to denounce what he said was a "Purge or Revolution" in South Korea, apparently over raids that involved churches.

Forty minutes into an Oval Office meeting in which Lee profusely praised Trump, the US leader dismissed his own sharply worded rebuke, saying, "I'm sure it's a misunderstanding" as "there is a rumor going around."

Trump said he believed he was on the same page on North Korea as Lee, a progressive who supports diplomacy over confrontation.

Donald Trump Trump suggests Americans "like a dictator" while signing controversial new federal orders

Donald Trump Trump casts serious doubt on Zelensky-Putin talks with big admission

Trump, who met Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, hailed his relationship with the young totalitarian and said he knew him "better than anybody, almost, other than his sister."

"Someday I'll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me," Trump told reporters, saying he hoped the talks would take place this year.

Trump contended that North Korea has been firing fewer rockets since he returned to the White House on January 20.

The president has boasted that he has solved seven wars in as many months back in the job – a claim that is contested – but had been quiet on North Korea despite the unusually personal diplomacy during his 2017-2021 tenure.

Trump once said that he and Kim "fell in love." Their meetings reduced tensions but failed to produce a lasting agreement.