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World leaders at UN focus on N Korea and Iran, brace for Trump

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NEW YORK North Korea and Iran will dominate this week's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, where President Donald Trump will be in the spotlight as he continues to upend global diplomacy.

After warming up to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and ditching the Iran nuclear deal, Mr Trump takes the podium tomorrow to face foes and increasingly uneasy allies at the UN General Assembly.

On Wednesday, he will for the first time chair a Security Council meeting on weapons of mass destruction that will focus on Iran - likely triggering a clash with other big powers.

The diplomatic gathering will take stock of the thaw in relations between North and South Korea, and ground-breaking US-North Korea moves to address the threat from Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Last year, Mr Trump threatened to destroy North Korea and belittled Mr Kim as "little Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission", while Mr Kim called Mr Trump the "mentally deranged US dotard."

Mr Trump's address to the assembly will be the "polar opposite of what we heard last year," said Suzanne DiMaggio, an expert on North Korea and Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The President will tout his face-to-face with Mr Kim as a major diplomatic win but "he should think twice if he plans to repeat his claim that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat," she said.

Despite the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore in June, there has been little concrete progress on denuclearisation.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho has been invited by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for talks on the sidelines of the assembly meeting.

During key meetings, South Korean President Moon Jae-in will encourage Mr Trump to press on with the rapprochement, but the US President is likely to get a different message from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has taken a tough stance on maintaining sanctions on Pyongyang.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will address the fall-out from the US decision to abandon the nuclear deal when he takes the podium shortly after Mr Trump tomorrow.

European countries along with Russia and China are trying to salvage the accord and will use the meeting chaired by Mr Trump to defend it. - AFP

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