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Trump says he sent North Korean leader ‘friendly letter’

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump talk in the garden of the Metropole hotel during the second North Korea-US summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 28, 2019. (AFP photo)

US President Donald Trump says he sent North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a "very friendly letter" in response to birthday greetings he received last week from Kim, even as the two countries remain at odds over the future of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Trump said Monday the letter he received from Kim last week contained a birthday greeting.

"North Korea has a phenomenal future," Trump told reporters while he was discussing new sanctions against Iran.

The exchange of letters comes as Trump prepares to leave on Wednesday for an Asia trip that will include a stop in South Korea.

Trump has maintained that he has a good relationship with Kim despite the tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday he hoped a letter Trump sent to Kim could pave the way for a revival of stalled nuclear talks.

Trump has met with Kim twice. Their second meeting in Vietnam effectively collapsed, and talks at lower levels have since stalled as well.

Washington has imposed several rounds of unilateral sanctions and spearheaded multilateral ones against Pyongyang since 2006 over its nuclear and missile programs.

Earlier this month, North Korea warned that an agreement reached at the first Trump-Kim summit in June 2018 in Singapore could become “a blank sheet of paper” if Washington did not “withdraw its hostile policy” toward Pyongyang.

“The arrogant and unilateral US policy will never work on the DPRK, which values sovereignty,” the official KCNA news agency said in an article on Tuesday, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The article warned that the four-point joint statement signed by Trump and Kim on June 12, 2018 pledging work toward a new relationship “is in danger of being a blank sheet of paper because the US is turning a blind eye to its implementation.”


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