Trump receives new letter from Kim Jong Un, sends his reply
WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that President Donald Trump received a new letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and responded quickly with a letter of his own. The correspondence, following up on their Singapore summit, came amid fresh concerns over Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearization.
Trump early Thursday tweeted his thanks to the North Korean leader “for your nice letter — I look forward to seeing you soon!”
The White House did not provide details on the specific content of the letter from Kim, received Wednesday, or of Trump’s reply. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the letters addressed their commitment to work toward North Korea’s “complete denuclearization.”
Sanders said no second meeting is “locked in” as a follow-up to the Singapore summit in June, but they remain open to discussions.
Trump in his tweet expressed gratitude to Kim “for keeping your word” on the return of the remains of more than 50 American service members killed during the Korean War. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. military leaders received the remains in Hawaii during a somber ceremony on Wednesday.
Those remains are “consistent with being Americans,” based on an initial examination, although none has been positively identified, a U.S. scientist who has seen the remains said Thursday.
John E. Byrd, director of the Defense Department laboratory in Hawaii where the 55 cases arrived on Wednesday, cited several reasons for saying that at least some of the remains appear to be those of Americans missing from the Korean War.
Byrd was present when North Korean officials turned over the 55 boxes at Wonsan airport in North Korea last Friday.
A cursory examination at Wonsan confirmed that the remains were human, he said, and a closer look gave reason to believe they likely are Americans.
“What we saw were remains that were consistent with what we have found from the Korean War recoveries that we’ve done over the years, and we found remains that were consistent with being Americans,” Byrd said, speaking by video teleconference from Hawaii.