Britain’s Burnham is set to meet Trump for the first time at the UN in New York

LONDON (AP) — Andy Burnham once said he would refuse to meet Donald Trump.

Now Britain’s prime minister is about to hold his first meeting with the U.S. president, with Ukraine and the soaring cost of conflict in the Middle East at the top of his agenda.

U.S. officials say the two leaders will hold talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Burnham is set to address the annual gathering of world leaders on Tuesday, setting out his vision of Britain’s place in an increasingly fractured world order.

Burnham’s only other foreign trip since taking office in July was to Kyiv, and he has said he will urge Trump to send interceptor missiles to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses ahead of another winter of war.

The British government also wants to discuss ways to restore free movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, largely blocked since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February. The closure of the key route has sent oil prices spiking, complicating Burnham’s efforts to jump-start Britain’s sluggish economy and ease the cost of living.

Like many Labour Party politicians, Burnham was strongly critical of Trump in the past. In 2017 Burnham, as the mayor of Greater Manchester, said the president wouldn’t be welcome in the city. Two years later he said he would refuse to meet Trump if he visited.

After becoming prime minister in July, Burnham said he always tries to find “common ground” with other politicians.

Burnham and Trump have spoken twice since Burnham replaced Keir Starmer at the helm of the center-left governing party. Trump has called Burnham “a nice guy,” but has also recently needled U.K. officials by expressing support for Irish unification and musing about the future of the Falkland Islands that are claimed by both Britain and Argentina.

Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said Burnham would be “pragmatic.”

“We won’t agree with the U.S. administration on everything,” Phillipson told Times Radio on Sunday. "We are from different political traditions, we have different approaches. But maintaining that relationship is critical for our national interest and I know that that’s the approach Andy Burnham will always take, putting our country first.”

Starmer went out of his way to flatter Trump, presenting him in the Oval Office in February 2025 with an invitation from King Charles III for an unprecedented second state visit to the U.K.

British officials felt Starmer’s approach was vindicated when the U.K. struck a trade deal with the Trump administration. But Trump soured on Starmer over his refusal to join the Iran war. The president also has repeatedly criticized the U.K.’s immigration and green-energy policies, urging the country to open more of the North Sea up to oil drilling.

Burnham is expected to announce a decision soon about whether to approve new oil and gas fields off Scotland.

U.K. officials also are braced for criticism of Britain’s ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and efforts to regulate big American technology firms.

Trump’s threats to seize Greenland alarmed the U.K. and other European allies earlier this year, and Burnham was among leaders expressing relief at the announcement of a deal between Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. to bolster the American military presence there but keep the Arctic island under Danish control.

Trump has other, more high-profile, international meetings this week, including one at the White House with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Burnham’s trip comes as middle-sized powers, led most vocally by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, try to forge closer alliances in the face of Trump’s “America first” foreign policy. Burnham’s government wants Britain to be bolder on the world stage, and to restore some of the ties with Europe severed when the U.K. left the European Union in 2020.

Ed Davey, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, urged Burnham to “do what the Europeans are doing, what the Canadians are doing, and start saying to Donald Trump, ‘the way you’re treating our country, the way you’re treating the world, is not acceptable.’”

“I want him to stand up to Trump. It’s really clear that’s the only language the president respects,” Davey said.

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session in Parliament in London, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An explosion near South Korea's heavily fortified border with North Korea injured three South Korean military officers on Monday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said the explosion occurred during an unspecified operation in the Demilitarized Zone, a border buffer zone separating the two nations that is commonly referred to as the DMZ.

The cause was not immediately clear, the ministry said.

South Korean officials did not say whether it was possible the explosion was caused by a land mine planted by North Korea, which has added mines, anti-tank barriers and other front line fortifications in recent months as relations between the war-divided rivals have sharply deteriorated.

Two of the officers were airlifted from the site by helicopter, while the third was transported by land before being airlifted, according to the ministry. The officers are being treated at a military hospital near the capital Seoul.

The DMZ, which is 248 kilometers (155 miles) long and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide, is one of the world’s most heavily armed borders. An estimated 2 million mines are peppered inside and near the border, which also is guarded by barbed wire fences, tank traps and combat troops on both sides. The zone is a legacy of the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, which ended with an armistice but not a peace treaty.

There have been growing concerns in South Korea about increased activity by North Korean soldiers near the military demarcation line as the North strengthens its border defenses during prolonged tensions between the countries. The South Korean military has not officially confirmed media reports that North Korean soldiers crossed the MDL more than 20 times during front line operations in August alone.

The South’s military fired warning shots to repel some 10 North Korean soldiers who crossed the military demarcation line at the eastern section of the DMZ in April 2025. The North Korean soldiers retreated after the South broadcast audio warnings and fired the shots and there were no clashes. In June 2024, North Korean troops crossed the border three times, prompting South Korea to fire warning shots.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent years has suspended virtually all cooperation and diplomacy with South Korea while declaring Seoul as his most hostile enemy during a stalemate in his larger nuclear negotiations with Washington.

North Korean mines in past years have occasionally washed down a swollen river into South Korea, killing or injuring civilians. In August 2015, land mine blasts maimed two South Korean soldiers and caused tensions between the two Koreas to flare.

FILE - South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, on Feb. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)