Pre-talk reports say Kim ready to give up nuclear arsenal

North Korea is prepared to accept ‘‘complete denuclearisation’’, South Korea’s president has said, after US President 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 US troops leave South Korea as a condition for giving up his nuclear arsenal, a key stumbling block in previous negotiations.

Yesterday, Moon Jae-in, 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 denuclearisation,’’ Moon told reporters. ‘‘They are not presenting a condition that the US 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 US 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 to 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, on Thursday.

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

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

NORTH KOREA:

‘‘North Korea is only talking about the end of a hostile policy against it and then a security guarantee for the country.’’ Moon Jae-in, South Korean President

In May, Kim Hak-song, another academic attached to the university, was arrested. Both are accused of ‘‘hostile acts’’ against North Korea. Neither is 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 during an unannounced visit to Pyongyang over Easter.

Trump wants to hold his historic meeting with the North Korean leader with only interpreters present, according to South Korean media.

Their meeting could take place as early as next month or June, following a summit next week between Kim and Moon that will discuss relations between the North and South.

– Telegraph Group