Donald Trump said he would invite Kim Jong-un to the White House if their summit in Singapore on June 12 was successful.
The US president also indicated he and Kim could sign a peace declaration to end the Korean War, and that he would one day like to normalise relations with Pyongyang.
Asked if Kim could come to the US for a follow-up meeting Mr Trump said: "Certainly, if it goes well. And I think it would be well received, I think he would look at it very favourably. So that could happen."
Mr Trump said he would probably prefer to host Kim at the White House, rather than his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, adding: "Maybe we’ll start with the White House…"
He said any agreement signed to formally close the Korean War, 65 years after it ended with an armistice not a peace treaty, would be a "first step, but yes we’re looking at it".
AFP
The US president also made clear that if the Singapore summit was not going well he would "walk away".
He said: "I am totally prepared to walk away. But I hope it won’t be necessary to walk."
Mr Trump said the summit would be "more than a photo-op," and the outcome would depend on the North Koreans’ "attitude".
Speaking at the White House alongside Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, he said: "It’s about the attitude. It’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly."
Mr Trump said if North Korea did not denuclearise that would "not be acceptable" and he could not take sanctions off until they did.
AP
He added: "They have to denuke. I’d love to say it could happen in one deal, maybe it can. I think it’s going to be be a very fruitful meeting, I think it’s gonna be an exciting meeting.
"This will not be just a photo-op. This will be, at a minimum, we’ll start with perhaps a good relationship and that’s something that’s very important toward the ultimate making of a deal."
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Describing a letter he received from Kim last week Mr Trump said: "It was a warm letter and nice. I appreciated it very much."
He said the North Korean nuclear issue should have been handled by previous US administrations, adding: "I’ll take care of it. I’ll solve it."
Administration officials indicated that Mr Trump actually was putting in preparation time. National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis noted the president met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday afternoon "to continue their strategic discussions" ahead of the summit.
Bloomberg
Mr Pompeo said he was confident the president would be fully prepared and dismissed reports of division inside Mr Trump’s foreign policy team over the decision to embrace the meeting with Kim.
In his previous role as CIA director, Pompeo told reporters on Thursday, "there were few days that I left the Oval Office, after having briefed the president, that we didn’t talk about North Korea."
Mr Pompeo said Kim had "personally" given him assurances that he was willing to pursue denuclearisation and said US and North Korean negotiating teams had made unspecified progress toward bridging the gap over defining that term as part of a potential agreement. He would not say whether Mr Trump would insist that the North put an end to its chemical, biological and ballistic missile programmes.
Mr Pompeo said Trump’s approach is "fundamentally different" from prior administrations. "In the past, there’d been months and months of detailed negotiations and they got nowhere," he said. "This has already driven us to a place we’d not been able to achieve."
Bloomberg
On his visit to Washington Mr Abe urged the US to use the meeting in Singapore to address the fate of Japanese citizens held hostage in North Korea.
It came as new satellite images indicated North Korea was demolishing a test stand for intercontinental ballistic missiles at Iha-ri, just 16 months after the facility was first used for a test launch.
Analysis of commercial satellite images by experts at 38 North, the website operated by Washington-based think tank The Henry L. Stimson Center, showed that the one square mile concrete pad for the test stand had been broken up.
So had impact pads, access ramps, a support tower for launches, and command buildings.
However, the group concluded: “It is unclear whether the destruction of the stand is an indication that the North is suspending this portion of its missile programme or that Pyongyang plans to erect other similar facilities in the future.