Trump: Date, location of meeting with N.Korea decided

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - President Donald Trump said Friday the time and location for his forthcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been decided.

A formal announcement will be made "soon," Trump told reporters.

The meeting is expected either this month or in June.

Should it materialize it would be a historic sit-down for a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

Trump, earlier this week, suggested the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea could serve as a site for the meeting, as well as Singapore.

Kim and Trump have struck remarkably more conciliatory tones as the meeting approaches, a stark contrast to the earlier slinging and often violent rhetoric at each other from across the Pacific.

Trump said the ongoing talks with North Korea over the fate of three Americans held in North Korea are "very substantive" after his lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed they would be freed on Thursday.

They have yet to be released from North Korean custody.

The U.S. has been demanding the release of the trio and Trump appeared to lay the blame for their detention with the Obama administration who he said "has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp".

Two of the three detainees -- Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim -- were imprisoned in 2017 when Trump was in office. Kim Dong Chul has been in North Korean custody since 2015.