Trump: NK summit plans set; US troop drawdown not on table

Matthew P. | Zeke Miller
WASHINGTON, US.- President Donald Trump offered his latest teaser Friday for a historic U.S. summit with North Korea: The time and place have been set but he’s not saying when and where. 

Trump also pushed back on a report that he’s considering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea.

Earlier this week, Trump expressed a preference for holding the “big event” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the demilitarized zone or DMZ between the two Koreas. He also said Singapore was in contention to host what will be the first summit of between a U.S. and a North Korean leader. 

“We now have a date and we have a location. We’ll be announcing it soon,” Trump told reporters Friday from the White House South Lawn before departing for Dallas. He’s previously said the summit was planned for May or early June. 

A meeting with Kim Jong Un seemed an outlandish possibility just a few months ago when the two leaders were trading threats and insults over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. But momentum for diplomacy has built this year as the rival Koreas have patched up ties. 

In March, Trump unexpectedly accepted an offer of talks from Kim after the North Korean dictator agreed to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile tests and discuss “denuclearization.” 

According to South Korea, Kim has said he’d be willing to give up his nukes if the United States commits to a formal end to the Korean War and pledges not to attack the North. But his exact demands for relinquishing weapons that his nation spent decades building remains unclear.