PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Monday responded to an overture from North Korea for talks with the US, saying that will happen only “under the right conditions.”

Mr Trump raised North Korea at an annual White House meeting with the nation’s governors after a North Korean envoy sent a message through South Korea on Sunday.

The envoy said the North has “ample intentions” of holding talks with the US.

The White House said in response that it would take a wait-and-see approach.

“We want to talk only under the right conditions,” Mr Trump said.

The administration’s position is that North Korea must get rid of its nuclear and missile programs before any talks can take place. The US has applied a series of sanctions, including a fresh round on Friday, in what it says is a “maximum pressure campaign” to force North Korea to disarm.

The Trump administration says it’s open to talks with North Korea, primarily to explain how America will maintain its pressure on the country until it takes steps toward eliminating its nuclear weapons.

US officials differentiate talks from negotiations. For those to occur, they first want Pyongyang to accept that its nuclear program will be on the table.

Speaking to the governors, Mr Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for bolstering his country’s sanctions against the North and warned that Russia is “behaving badly” on the issue of sanctions.

“Russia is sending in what China is taking out,” Mr Trump said.

During Sunday’s closing ceremony for the Olympic Games, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced that a North Korean delegate to the Olympics said his country is willing to hold talks with the US.

The move comes after decades of tensions between the two countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations, and a year of escalating rhetoric, including threats of war, between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The North has “ample intentions of holding talks with the United States,” Moon’s office said.

Mr Trump has vowed to use force if necessary to prevent North Korea from acquiring a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the US mainland.

At a White House news conference on Friday, he warned that the US would move to “phase two” in its pressure campaign if sanctions don’t work. Mr Trump said such a step could be “very rough” and “very unfortunate for the world.” He did not elaborate.

“If we can make a deal it will be a great thing. If we can’t, something will have to happen,” Mr Trump said.

‘I WOULD HAVE RUN INTO THE SCHOOL WITH NO WEAPON’

It comes as Mr Trump told the nation’s governors that he would have heroically run into the high school where a gunman armed with an assault rifle was massacring 17 people “even if I didn’t have a weapon”.

“I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” the commander-in-chief declared.

Mr Trump — who got five deferments to avoid military service in Vietnam — made the comments while criticising officers who didn’t stop the Florida gunman who carried out the bloodbath at the high school in Parkland, Florida.

The officers, he added, “weren’t exactly Medal of Honour winners.���

Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student at the school, killed 14 students and three staffers and wounded many others during the Valentine’s Day rampage.

SUPREME COURT REFUSES TRUMP CHALLENGE OF DACA

Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court overnight, refused to hear the Trump administration’s challenge of a federal judge’s decision requiring the government continue to shield “Dreamers”.

The Dreamers are undocumented (illegal) immigrants under the age of 31 who arrived in the US before turning 16.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (known as DACA) is the federal government program created by the Obama administration in 2012 that protects those youths — who they are vetted for criminal history or as threats to national security.

The Supreme Court decision to not hear an appeal of the DACA ruling has dealt a blow to President Trump, who called for an end to the Obama-era program.

A lower court in January ordered the government to accept renewal applications for the DACA program that protects about 700,000 “Dreamers” brought into the United States illegally by their parents from deportation.

In the order, the court said: “It is assumed the court of appeals will act expeditiously to decide this case.”

President Trump called for an end to the program in September but gave Congress six months to make legislative changes to fix it.

That deadline of March 5 is now meaningless because the court said the government must continue to accept the applications indefinitely.

The administration appealed a January 9 nationwide injunction imposed by federal District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in effect while the matter winds its way through the courts.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the agency wasn’t surprised by the high court’s decision.

“While we were hopeful for a different outcome, the Supreme Court very rarely grants” review at this stage, said Devin O’Malley.

He said the administration will continue to defend the Department of Homeland Security’s “lawful authority to wind down DACA in an orderly manner.”