Upbeat Trump thanks Kim as three freed US prisoners return home

US President Donald Trump welcomed three Americans who had been held prisoner in North Korea back home early on Thursday, thanking its leader, Kim Jong-un, for their release and sounding upbeat about a planned bilateral summit.

The former prisoners, freed after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Pyongyang for a second meeting with Kim in less than six weeks, landed at around 2.40am at Joint Base Andrews near Washington.

Trump and his wife, Melania, boarded the plane about five minutes before the three men stepped out, shaking hands with the president and waving to waiting media and military personnel. “Frankly we didn’t think it was going to happen and it did,” Trump said after thanking Kim. “We’re starting off on a new footing. This is a wonderful thing that he released the folks early.”

Trump said he believed Kim wanted to bring North Korea “into the real world” and was hopeful of a major breakthrough at their planned meeting, which would be the first between a serving US president and North Korean leader.

“I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful,” he said. “My proudest achievement will be — this is part of it — when we denuclearise that entire peninsula.”

Trump and Kim engaged in a bellicose exchange of rhetoric in 2017 over North Korea’s development long-range nuclear missiles.