Image copyright Reuters Image caption Dennis Rodman was mobbed by the press at Beijing airport en route to Pyongyang 
 
 Controversial US basketball star Dennis Rodman is returning for a visit to North Korea. 
 
 The former NBA player is travelling as a private citizen. 
 
 "I'm just trying to open the door," he told reporters at Beijing airport, en route to the reclusive state. 
 
 He made headlines after befriending North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on previous trips to Pyongyang in 2013 and 2014. Mr Rodman has called him his "friend for life". 
 
 The US state department said it is aware of his visit. 
 
 "We wish him well. But we have issued travel warnings to Americans and suggested they not travel to North Korea for their own safety," said US Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, according to Reuters news agency. 
 
 Mr Rodman told reporters, "My purpose is to actually see if I can keep bringing sports to North Korea, so that's the main thing." 
 
 It is unclear whether he will also bring up the detention of US citizens in the country. 
 
 Image copyright AFP / Getty Images Image caption North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and Dennis Rodman watched basketball together in 2013 
 
 US and North Korean tensions have intensified under President Donald Trump, who has said he fears a "major, major conflict" breaking out between the two countries. 
 
 However, the president has also said he would be "honoured" to meet Mr Kim, in the right circumstances. 
 
 Trump's old apprentice 
 
 Speaking at the airport on Tuesday, Mr Rodman said: "I am pretty much sure that he [Trump] is happy with the fact that I am over here trying to accomplish something that we both need." 
 
 When asked about Mr Rodman's North Korea visits in 2013, Mr Trump told Fox News: "You look at the world, the world is blowing up around us. Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have." 
 
 Mr Rodman had been a contestant on Mr Trump's reality TV show The Celebrity Apprentice that same year. 
 
 In 2014, Mr Trump flatly dismissed rumours that the pair might travel to North Korea together. 
 
 Image copyright Twitter / Donald Trump Image caption Donald Trump's 2014 tweet 
 
 The former Chicago Bulls star also once encouraged former US President Barack Obama to "pick up the phone and call" Mr Kim, emphasising that the two leaders both liked basketball. 
 
 His trips have been referred to as "basketball diplomacy" in the US press. 
 
 In 2014, Mr Rodman told luxury lifestyle magazine DuJour he had approached the US government for support but was rejected. 
 
 Tears and favours 
 
 He has previously broken down in tears during TV interviews, saying he has had death threats over his trips, which have been condemned by human rights activists. 
 
 Although at one point he did tweet Mr Kim to ask if he would "do me a solid and let Kenneth Bae loose" - referring to a US-Korean missionary who served two years in prison for trying to overthrow the government. 
 
 Mr Bae later thanked Mr Rodman for raising public awareness of his case. 
 
 On Twitter on Tuesday, Mr Rodman said his latest trip was being sponsored by a company that provides digital currency for the marijuana industry. He wore fully branded clothes to the airport. 
 
 A previous trip to the country was sponsored by a betting company. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman, center, is greeted by North Korea's Sports Ministry Vice Minister Son Kwang Ho, right, upon his arrival at Sunan International Airport on Tuesday, June 13, 2017,... (Associated Press) 
 
 PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Dennis Rodman, the former NBA bad boy who has palled around with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, flew back to Pyongyang on Tuesday for the first time in Donald Trump's presidency. He said he is "just trying to open a door" on a mission that he thinks his former "Celebrity Apprentice" boss would support. 
 
 Rodman, one of the few people to know both of the nuclear-armed leaders, sported a black T-shirt advertising a marijuana cybercurrency as he talked to reporters briefly before his flight from Beijing to the North Korean capital. 
 
 Asked if he had spoken to Trump about his trip, he said, "Well, I'm pretty sure he's pretty much happy with the fact that I'm over here trying to accomplish something that we both need." 
 
 Rodman has received the red-carpet treatment on four past trips since 2013, but has been roundly criticized for visiting during a time of high tensions between the U.S. and North Korea over its weapons programs. 
 
 His entourage includes Joseph Terwilliger, a professor who has accompanied Rodman on previous trips to North Korea. 
 
 Rodman said the issue of several Americans currently detained by North Korea is "not my purpose right now." 
 
 In Tokyo, a visiting senior U.S. official said Rodman is making the trip as a private citizen. 
 
 "We are aware of his visit. We wish him well, but we have issued travel warnings to Americans and suggested they not travel to North Korea for their own safety," U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon told reporters after discussing the North Korean missile threat and other issues with Japanese counterparts. 
 
 In 2014, Rodman arranged a basketball game with other former NBA players and North Koreans and regaled leader Kim with a rendition of "Happy Birthday." On the same trip, he suggested that an American missionary was at fault for his own imprisonment in North Korea, remarks for which he later apologized. 
 
 A North Korean foreign ministry official said Rodman would stay until Saturday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the ministry had not issued a formal statement. 
 
 Any visit to North Korea by a high-profile American is a political minefield, and Rodman has been criticized for failing to use his influence on leaders who are otherwise isolated diplomatically from the rest of the world. 
 
 Americans are regarded as enemies in North Korea because the two countries never signed a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. Thousands of U.S. troops are based in South Korea, and the Demilitarized Zone between the North and South is one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. 
 
 A statement issued in New York by a Rodman publicist said the former NBA player is in the rare position of being friends with the leaders of both North Korea and the United States. Rodman was a cast member on two seasons of Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice." 
 
 Rodman tweeted that his trip was being sponsored by Potcoin, one of a growing number of cybercurrencies used to buy and sell marijuana in state-regulated markets. 
 
 North Korea has been hailed by marijuana news outlets and British tabloids as a pothead paradise and maybe even the next Amsterdam of pot tourism. But the claim that marijuana is legal in North Korea is not true. The penal code lists it as a controlled substance in the same category as cocaine and heroin. 
 
 Americans have been sentenced to years in North Korean prisons for such seemingly minor offenses as stealing a political banner and likely could not expect leniency if the country's drug laws were violated. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press journalists Mark Schiefelbein in Beijing and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
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– One of the world's weirdest bromances appears to be alive and well: Dennis Rodman has returned to Pyongyang for his first visit to North Korea since his former Celebrity Apprentice boss became president, the BBC reports. Rodman, who has described dictator Kim Jong Un as a "friend for life," told reporters he was "just trying to open a door" and he is sure President Trump will be "happy with the fact that I'm over here trying to accomplish something that we both need," the AP reports. In a tweet, Rodman thanked Potcoin, a cybercurrency used in marijuana transactions, for sponsoring his trip. He wore a Potcoin T-shirt at the airport. Rodman's visit, the first since early 2014, comes at a time of growing US-North Korea tensions. "I know the Trump administration has been trying half-heartedly to start a dialogue with the North Koreans," analyst Joel Wit tells the Los Angeles Times. "It would be strange to use Dennis Rodman as an intermediary," he says, "but under the Trump administration a lot of things are possible that wouldn’t have been with other administrations." When Rodman suggested in 2014 that Trump was interested in visiting Pyongyang, Trump tweeted: "Dennis Rodman was either drunk or on drugs (delusional) when he said I wanted to go to North Korea with him. Glad I fired him on Apprentice!"