Kim could give up nukes: S. Korea

Dropped demand for U.S. troops to leave, Moon says

North Korea is prepared to accept “complete denuclearization,” South Korea’s president said, after Donald Trump vowed to abandon talks with the regime if they were not “fruitful.”

Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, is reportedly also no longer demanding that U.S. troops leave South Korea as a condition for giving up his nuclear arsenal, a key stumbling block in previous negotiations.

On Thursday, Moon Jaein, the South’s president, announced that the North Korean regime had dropped the request from its list of demands ahead of talks.

“North Korea is expressing a commitment to a complete denuclearization,” Moon told reporters. “They are not presenting a condition that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of the American troops in South Korea.

“North Korea is only talking about the end of a hostile policy against it and then a security guarantee for the country.”

If officially confirmed by Pyongyang, the move could speed up plans for the first summit between the U.S. and North Korea’s leaders.

Moon made the announcement after Trump threatened to abandon his planned meeting with Kim if he decided it would not be successful or walk out if it was not productive while he was there.

“If we don’t think it’s going to be successful, we won’t have it,” Trump said at a news conference with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister late on Wednesday.

Trump did not outline what would make the meeting a success, but has said the administration is “fighting very diligently to get the three Americans held captive in North Korea back.”

The men are all U.S. citizens of Korean ethnicity. Kim Sang-duk, or Tony Kim, 59, had been on a onemonth teaching assignment at the Pyongyang University when he was arrested last April as he was about to leave Pyongyang.

In May, Kim Hak-song, another academic attached to the university, was arrested. Both are accused of “hostile acts” against North Korea. Neither is yet thought to have been tried or convicted.

Kim Dong Chul, 63, the third American, was convicted of subversion, espionage and insulting the North Korean leadership last April.

Mike Pompeo, Trump’s CIA director, is thought to have discussed the captives with Kim in an unannounced visit to Pyongyang over Easter.