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Donald Trump on Twitter: North Korea promises to halt missile tests ‘through our meetings’

A man watches a TV screen showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump, left, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, March 9, 2018. Trump has accepted an offer of a summit from the North Korean leader and will meet with Kim Jong Un by May, a top South Korean official said Thursday, in a remarkable turnaround in relations between two historic adversaries. The signs read: " Kim Jong Un." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon). AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday afternoon that North Korea had promised to refrain from conducting missile tests “through our meetings.”

“North Korea has not conducted a Missile Test since November 28, 2017 and has promised not to do so through our meetings. I believe they will honor that commitment!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

There was talk earlier this week that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wanted to meet with Trump in person, to which the White House responded that the president would be open to meeting with Kim to discuss “denuclearization.”

The White House has not released a date for a meeting between Trump and Kim, but only said that the president had agreed to meet. North Korea has fired 23 missiles in 16 missile tests since February, 2017. Its most recent took place in the early hours of Nov. 29, 2017.

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It wasn’t immediately clear which meetings Trump was referring in his tweet to or when they would take place.

However, the White House came under fire earlier this week for agreeing to talks, and responded to criticism on Friday by warning that no summit would occur unless Pyongyang took “concrete actions” regarding its nuclear program.

Trump also tweeted late on Friday that a deal with North Korea was “very much in the making and will be, if completed, a very good one for the world. Time and place to be determined.”

A meeting between Kim and Trump would represent unprecedented talks between leaders of the two nations. While tensions ran high between the United States and North Korea over the course of 2017, during which the regime conducted several prohibited missile tests, the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea saw a slight thaw in hostilities.

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A White House official said on Friday Trump remained committed to a meeting based on conditions laid out by South Korea: that Kim is committed to denuclearization, will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests and understands that U.S.-South Korean military exercises must continue.

The talks are expected to be held in May.

Neutral Switzerland, which often hosts summits, said it was ready to help.

-With files from Reuters. 

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