WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump has welcomed the re-emergence of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after weeks of speculation about his health, but prospects over Washington's efforts to persuade Pyongyang to denuclearise appear as bleak as ever.

North Korean media last Saturday said Mr Kim cut a ribbon at a ceremony the day before to mark the completion of a fertiliser plant.

It had not reported on Mr Kim's whereabouts since he presided over a meeting on April 11, provoking speculation that he was seriously ill and raising concerns about instability in his nuclear-armed country that could affect other North Asian countries and the US.

Mr Kim was seen in photographs smiling and talking to aides at the ceremony and also touring the plant. The authenticity of the photos could not be verified.

Mr Trump, who met Mr Kim three times - in 2018 and last year - in unprecedented but unsuccessful personal attempts to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons, tweeted on Saturday: "I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!"

Although Mr Trump has continued to refer to Mr Kim as a friend, the mystery of the past three weeks has served to emphasise the limits of that relationship and his lack of progress in persuading North Korea to give up a nuclear weapons programme that threatens the US.

The lack of a clear successor for Mr Kim has raised fears about the security of the nuclear programme in the event of political turmoil in North Korea, which borders US strategic rival China and US allies South Korea and Japan.

Last Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was monitoring the situation closely and that the US' focus remained on "making sure that that country doesn't have nuclear weapons". North Korea has shown no willingness to abandon weapons it sees as vital for defence of the nation and the Kim dynasty.

"I would think we are back to where we were," said Mr Joseph Yun, who was a US envoy to North Korea under then President Barack Obama and at the start of the Trump administration.

Analysts say the scare over Mr Kim's health emphasised the need for thorough contingency planning, something complicated by the coronavirus pandemic.

"I doubt we'll ever have much clarity on what Kim did over the past couple of weeks and the anxiety it caused sparked some real questions about how prepared we are to deal with this kind of circumstance," said Ms Jenny Town of 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea analysis project. "No one seemed particularly prepared to respond in case of a North Korean crisis given the current political conditions. That is something that should be addressed."

REUTERS