North Korea released the three American detainees to show they want to improve relations with the United States Washington. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accelerated the breakthrough and allowed the details of the upcoming historic summit between Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong-un to be refined. "They are coming home," Trump cheered on Twitter. “I am pleased to report that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is returning from North Korea with three people who everyone wants to see again. They seem to be in good health ”, he added, saying that the meeting between Pompeo and Kim“ went well ”, with“ the date and place of the meeting already fixed ”.
Trump ruled out that the summit could be held along the inter-Korean border - as happened in Panmunjom on April 27 between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in - leaving the only option unofficially left on the table for the state, which is Singapore. The location of the summit will be officially announced in the coming days, and former CIA director Mike Pompeo has not ruled out that it may last more than a single day.
In the plans, the meeting will be for one day, but if there are more things to discuss, there is the possibility that it will also be extended to a second day ”, said the US Secretary of State. Leaving North Korea, Pompeo's plane with the three freed Americans made a overnight stop at the American base of Yokota, just outside Tokyo, before continuing on to the military base in Washington, Andrews Air Force Base. And Trump "appreciated" Kim's move, "a positive gesture of benevolence," the White House clarified in a statement. On the other hand, it was one of the conditions imposed by the United States for the summit between the two leaders.
I released by the Korean regime
In 2015, Kim Dong-chul, an American of Korean origin, was arrested for espionage and sentenced the following year to 10 years of hard labor. In 2017, however, it was the turn of Kim Hak-song, professor at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, e Kim Sang-dok, invited to teach accounting at the same university. For the two of them the accusation was of unspecified "hostile acts" against the Korean country. The misadventure of the three ended with a happy ending, unlike what happened in June 2017 in Otto Warmbier, a student of 22 years of the University of Virginia detained for 17 months and accused of having appropriated a banner of propaganda kept in a hotel in Pyongyang: freed in a state of coma, died a few days after returning to the USA.
Meanwhile, from Tokyo, the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China reaffirmed at the first meeting of the Trilateral in over two years their commitment "to make effective" the results achieved by the Panmunjom summit, from the process of complete denuclearization to permanent peace on the peninsula , which are "in our mutual interests and responsibilities".
The joint note urges all possible efforts for the success of the Trump-Kim summit, the Japanese and Chinese premier, Shinzo Abe and Li Keqiang, and South Korean president Moon Jae-in agreed. "Everyone thinks I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize," Donald Trump said in the evening, responding to reporters about the ongoing thaw with North Korea.