United States President Donald Trump on Friday said the date and venue for his landmark summit with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un have been decided and told reporters to “stay tuned”.
Trump had agreed to meet Kim Jong-un by May, the White House had announced in March, setting the stage for an unprecedented summit between the two leaders following months of tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programme.
The White House had said Trump was ready to meet Kim by May at a time and location yet to be determined.
“We now have a date and we have a location, we’ll be announcing it soon,” Trump said during a brief interaction with reporters at White House before leaving on a trip to Texas.
The United States is having substantive talks with the North Koreans, Trump said.
“We’re having very substantive talks with North Korea and a lot of things have already happened with regard to the hostages. I think you’re going to be seeing very good things,” Trump said in response to a question.
The announcement for the summit -- the first ever between leaders of the two countries -- was made after months of tension between the two nations.
Trump himself had confirmed the meeting in a tweet, but said that the US sanctions on North Korea would remain in place until a denuclearisation deal was achieved.
Last month Trump had said he hoped that we would be able to deal in a “very open and honourable fashion” with North Korea. “I started a process, and when I did everybody thought I was doing it absolutely wrong,” he had said.
