US President Donald Trump on Thursday insisted that his "deep and special friend" Kim Jong Un is in "good health" — rubbishing rumors that the North Korean leader was severely ill.
"Kim Jong Un is in good health. Never underestimate him!" Trump tweeted.
The president's comment regarding the North Korean dictator comes as more details of their relationship emerged in Bob Woodward's latest book, "Rage".
According to CNN's report, Trump has received "love letters" from Kim fawning over him.
Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump's friendship
Kim wrote in one letter of "that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency's hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day."
The letters, filled with flowery language, provide a fascinating window into their relationship, the media reported, adding that Kim in the letters often flattered Trump by repeatedly calling him "Your Excellency," and wrote in one letter that meeting again would be "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film."
In another, Kim wrote that the "deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force", the CNN report said citing transcripts of two of the letters.
"He never smiled before. I'm the only one he smiles with," Trump told Woodward in interviews contained in the book.
For months, speculation has swirled over Kim's health, with some reports saying that he was in a vegetative state following a botched heart surgery and ready to hand over the keys to the kingdom to his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong.
Meanwhile, a North Korean defector with contacts inside Pyongyang told The New York Post this month that Kim's grip on power inside his kingdom is stronger than ever, despite reports stating otherwise.
"I still have contacts in North Korea and people in North Korea giving me information," Yeonmi Park told The Post in an exclusive interview.
"We can agree that Kim Yo Jong is not taking over North Korea and I don't think that is in her interest. Kim Jong Un is very much in power and he's not dying anytime soon," she continued.
Trump has met with Kim a handful of times during his presidency — becoming the first president to ever meet with a North Korean head of state. Despite attempts to normalize relations, peace talks over the denuclearization process of the Korean peninsula between the two nations fell apart following Trump's visit to North Korea in 2019.
