Trump's summit with Kim Jong Un set for June 12 in Singapore, president says
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The summit is set.
President Trump tweeted Thursday that his "highly anticipated meeting" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place in Singapore on June 12.
"The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" Trump tweeted.
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Fox News had reported Wednesday that Singapore likely would be the location for the planned historic meeting.
It would be the first-ever summit between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
The details were announced after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned overnight from Pyongyang with three freed American prisoners who had been held captive in North Korea.
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Pompeo helped secure their release, while ironing out details of the summit.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying they were “pleased” to host the summit, and, “We hope this meeting will advance prospects for peace in the Korean Peninsula.”
A Trump-Kim meeting seemed a remote possibility just a few months ago, when the two leaders were trading threats and insults over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and a string of ballistic missile tests. But momentum for diplomacy has built this year; North and South Korea have moved to ease tensions, including with their own leaders holding a summit late last month.
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In March, Trump unexpectedly accepted an offer of talks from Kim after the North Korean dictator agreed to suspend nuclear and missile tests and discuss "denuclearization." According to South Korea, Kim says he's 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.
On Monday, China's official news agency, Xinhua, quoted Kim as saying, "I hope to build mutual trust with the U.S. through dialogue."
But his exact demands for relinquishing the weapons his nation has spent decades building remain unclear. Previous U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the North's nuclear weapons program failed under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
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Trump personally greeted the freed Americans overnight when they arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. A motorcade was waiting to take the three Korean-American detainees -- Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim -- to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for physical examinations.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson, John Roberts and Alex Pappas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.