Donald Trump may visit heavily armed border area between North and South Korea

Donald Trump could next month be standing just metres from Kim Jong-un’s gun-toting soldiers during a possible visit to the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

Officials from Washington have reportedly visited the tense border area between the two countries – who remain technically at war – as they draw up detailed plans for the US president’s upcoming visit to South Korea.

Mr Trump is heading to the South as part of a tour of Asia when he is expected to deliver a strong message to Pyongyang over its build up of nuclear weapons.

An anonymous South Korean defence official told Yonhap news agency that an advance team of US officials “looked around Panmunjom and Observation Post Ouellette.”

Panmunjom is located in the 4-km (2.5 mile) wide buffer zone between the North and South, who never signed a peace treaty ending their 1950-53 war, only an armistice.

Inside the ‘truce village’ is a Joint Security Area (JSA) where North Korean troops carry pistols and take photographs and video of visitors.

Last March, one North Korean solider was seen standing directly behind Rex Tillerson as he took a picture of the US Secretary of State when he visited Panmunjom.

Barack Obama visited Observation Post Ouellette in 2012, while two years later Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates – who were then senior officials in his administration - toured Panmunjom together.

However, a visit by Mr Trump to the DMZ would likely create a major security headache for South Korean authorities.

Mr Trump has vowed to “destroy” North Korea if it threatened the US, and also warned Mr Kim’s regime that it would face “fire and fury” as tensions over Pyongyang’s military build-up have escalated in recent months.

Visitors who join a tour to the JSA must fill out a declaration that states the visit "will entail the entrance into a hostile area and the possibility of injury or death as a result of enemy action".