White House confirms Trump letter to North Korea's Kim ahead of Asia trip

White House confirms Trump letter to North Korea's Kim ahead of Asia trip
FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump talk in the garden of the Metropole hotel during the second North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo Copyright Leah Millis(Reuters)
By Reuters
Share this articleComments
Share this articleClose Button

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House confirmed on Sunday that President Donald Trump had sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, days before the U.S. president leaves for a trip to Japan and South Korea.

“A letter was sent by President Trump and correspondence between the two leaders has been ongoing,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in an email.

Earlier North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA said Kim would put serious thought into the content of the letter, details of which it did not describe.

The KCNA report said Kim described the letter as being "of excellent content" and that he "would seriously contemplate the interesting content."

U.S.-North Korea talks stalled after a failed summit in February between Trump and the North Korean leader in Hanoi, Vietnam.

A U.S. official said on Wednesday the United States had no pre-conditions for new talks, but that progress would require meaningful and verifiable North Korean steps to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

Trump leaves for Asia later this week for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, and meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in Seoul.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Share this articleComments

You might also like

Cars submerged as Cyclone Belal sparks flash flooding in Mauritius

Indian rescuers pull out all 41 workers trapped in collapsed tunnel for 17 days

Moscow threatens to confiscate EU assets, West expanding Ukraine war to Asia, drone strikes