Kim Jong-un just wants Obama to call: Rodman North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. WASHINGTON: North Korea's young leader has riled the US with recent nuclear tests, but Kim Jong-Un doesn't really want war with the superpower, just a call from President Barack Obama to chat about their shared love of basketball, according to unlikely diplomat Dennis Rodman, the ex-NBA star just back from an improbable visit there. He loves basketball. ... I said Obama loves basketball. Let's start there" as a way to warm up relations between the US and North Korea, Mr Rodman told US television's This Week. He asked me to give Obama something to say and do one thing. He wants Obama to do one thing, call him," said Mr Rodman, who called the authoritarian leader an "awesome guy" during his trip. The State Department criticised North Korea last week for "wining and dining" Mr Rodman while its own people go hungry. Mr Rodman also said Mr Kim told him, "I don't want to do war. I don't want to do war. Yet in January, after the UN Security Council voted to condemn the North's successful rocket launch in December and expand penalties against Mr Kim's government, his National Defense Commission said in a statement that "settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words." Mr Rodman was the highest-profile American to meet Kim since he inherited power from his father Kim Jong-Il in 2011. He travelled to the secretive state with several members of the Harlem Globetrotters team for a new HBO series. Mr Rodman said he was aware of North Korea's human rights record, which the State Department has characterised as one of the worst in the world, but said he wasn't apologising for Mr Kim. "He's a good guy to me," Mr Rodman said, adding, that "as a person to person, he's my friend. I don't condone what he does. Basketball is popular in North Korea, and Thursday's exhibition game with two Americans playing on each time alongside North Koreans ended in a 110-110 tie. Following the game Mr Kim threw an "epic feast" for the group, plying them with food and drinks and making round after round of toasts. Mr Rodman's trip was the second attention-grabbing American visit this year to North Korea. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January, but did not meet Kim.