US President Donald Trump says North Korea wants to hold a high-stakes meeting “as soon as possible” and he is praising Kim Jong Un as “very open” and “very honorable.” Trump is addressing his upcoming plans to meet with the North Korean leader during his discussions at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump’s praise for the North Korean dictator stands in stark contrast to his past comments in which he referred to Kim as “Little Rocket Man.” The Trump-Kim meeting is expected in May or June. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is meeting with Kim on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang.</s>President Donald Trump has claimed North Korea has already made concessions to the US in advance of a potential summit with Kim Jong Un in the coming months.

On Friday Mr Kim will meet South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in a summit which could pave the way for the meeting with Mr Trump which has been pencilled in for May or June.

Mr Trump and Mr Kim had frequently taunted each other before the recent thaw in the relationship.

Today, Mr Trump said the rhetoric with Mr Kim and the schoolyard taunts of nuclear buttons was “very, very nasty” and heightened fears of nuclear war.

But now, he says, the situation on the peninsula is going very well.

He said: “Let me just tell you the nuclear war would have happened if you have weak people.”

During the call into the show, Mr Trump revealed more information about CIA director Mike Pompeo’s secret trip to North Korea earlier this month.

He said he was not supposed to meet with Mr Kim, but that they ended up meeting for more than an hour.</s>President Donald Trump is wrongly claiming North Korea has agreed to “denuclearization” before his potential meeting with Kim Jong Un. North Korea said Friday it would suspend nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches before summits with the U.S. and South Korea. Kim also said a nuclear test site would be closed and “dismantled.”

The North stopped short of suggesting it has any intention of abandoning its nuclear arsenal. But Trump tweeted Sunday that the North has “agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!”

South Korea’s president has said Kim isn’t asking for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula as a condition for abandoning his nuclear weapons. If true, it would seem to remove a major sticking point to a potential disarmament deal.</s>President Donald Trump said Kim Jong Un wants a historic, high-stakes meeting as soon as possible and suggested the North Korean dictator has been "very open" and "very honorable," a sharply different assessment of a leader he once denounced as "Little Rocket Man."

The United States and North Korea have been negotiating a summit between Trump and Kim to be held in May or June to broker a deal on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Trump, who has struck a decidedly optimistic tone on the situation in recent days, said Tuesday that the United States and North Korea were having "good discussions."

"We have been told directly that they would like to have the meeting as soon as possible. We think that's a great thing for the world," Trump said Tuesday at the White House alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. "Kim Jong Un, he really has been very open and I think very honorable from everything we're seeing."

Trump cautioned that North Korea had not followed through on previous promises, but credited tough steps from his administration — including sanctions and organizing pressure from international allies — for having forced Pyongyang to hold talks. And he again suggested that he would "leave the table" if the negotiations were not productive or if North Korea was not operating in good faith.

"We'll see where that all goes," the president said. "Maybe it will be wonderful or maybe it won't."

Trump's comments came days after a flurry of moves from North Korea that the White House was anxious to promote as signs that its coercion campaign was working. On Saturday, North Korea announced it will close its nuclear testing facility and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests — a move welcomed by Trump as "big progress."

However, the North stopped short of suggesting it will give up its nuclear weapons — as Trump suggested in a weekend tweet — or scale back its production of missiles and their related components. When pressed Tuesday on what he meant by the goal of "denuclearization," Trump said, "It means they get rid of their nukes. Very simple."

"It would be easy for me to make a simple deal and declare victory. I don't want to do that," the president said.

This week, U.S.-allied South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim will hold a summit in the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas that could lay the ground for Trump's planned meeting with the North Korean dictator. The leaders of the U.S. and North Korea have never met during six decades of hostility since the Korean War.

The exact date and location of the possible summit has not been determined.

As diplomacy gathered pace, White House officials and congressional aides said the Trump administration was considering nominating Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, as ambassador to South Korea. That key position has been vacant since Trump took office 15 months ago.

It would entail a shuffle in the administration's plans for key diplomatic assignments. Harris has already been nominated to be ambassador to Australia. His Senate confirmation hearing for the Australia position had been due to take place Tuesday but was postponed.

One of the congressional aides said both the State Department and governments in both Australia and South Korea were informed that the administration is looking at a switch of postings for Harris, although nothing has been made official yet. The aide and other officials requested anonymity to discuss the plans as they were not authorized to discuss them.

In Canberra, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she had been told by U.S. Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan that Harris would become South Korea's ambassador and that a new appointment to the post in Australia would be a priority for the next U.S. secretary of state.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who is Trump's choice for secretary of state, told his own confirmation hearing this month that the vacancy in Seoul needed "immediate attention." The man earlier tipped for the post, Korea expert Victor Cha, was passed over in January. He later voiced concern the administration was considering military action against North Korea.

Harris has spent nearly 40 years in uniform and has a reputation as a straight talker. In testimony last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Harris said that the U.S. could not be "overly optimistic" about outcomes for the planned Trump-Kim summit. "We have to go into this, eyes wide open," he told lawmakers.

Last year, the U.S. spearheaded through the U.N. Security Council the toughest international sanctions yet against North Korea in response to three long-range missile launches and its most powerful nuclear test explosion yet. The Trump administration supplemented those restrictions with unilateral U.S. sanctions against firms that had conducted illicit trade with the North.

This year, Kim has pivoted from confrontation to diplomacy and, according to South Korea and China, has expressed a commitment to denuclearization. There is still uncertainty about what he seeks in return.

Trump's praise for Kim on Tuesday stood in stark contrast to his previous bellicose rhetoric toward the North Korean leader. Beyond dubbing him "Little Rocket Man" from the rostrum of the United Nations last fall, Trump has threatened to deliver "fire and fury" upon North Korea and taunted Kim on Twitter that his own nuclear "button" was larger than the one in Pyongyang.

Later Tuesday, Trump sidestepped a question as to why he would use the word "honorable" to describe Kim, who has been accused of starving his own people, executing his political opponents and ordering the killing of a member of his own family.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Ken Thomas and Matthew Lee in Washington and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.</s>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the world will have a single overriding interest: How will they address North Korea's decades-long pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles?

Success, even a small one, on the nuclear front could mean a prolonged detente and smooth the path for a planned summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in May or June. Optimists hope the two summits might even result in a grand nuclear bargain.

North Korea's announcement on Saturday to suspend further nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and close its nuclear test site raised hopes in Washington and Seoul for a breakthrough in the upcoming nuclear negotiations. However, the North's statement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intentions to give up its nukes or halt its production of missiles.

Failure to reach a nuclear agreement would raise serious questions about the sincerity of Kim's recent outreach to Seoul and Washington and rekindle the fears of war that spread across the Korean Peninsula last year.

A look at the prospects of a North Korean disarmament deal ahead of the two impending summits:

Although North Korea has expressed a willingness to have "candid" talks with the United States about the denuclearization of the peninsula, there's rampant skepticism about whether Kim will give up his nukes.

Those weapons are the core of his authoritarian rule, a "powerful treasured sword" meant to neutralize U.S. nuclear threats. And the North's call for "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" has been linked to a demand for the withdrawal of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea.

Kim suggested during a trip to Beijing in March that he prefers step-by-step disarmament in return for corresponding concessions. That, critics say, could allow the North to covertly continue its weapons programs while winning badly needed aid, which occurred during now-dormant six-nation nuclear talks from 2003 to 2008.

Analysts say it's likely that Kim will make similar commitments during the inter-Korean summit as a way of reaching out to the United States. Go Myong-Hyun of the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies said Kim may also offer up a rough timetable for denuclearization.

North Korea argues that it needs its nukes because of the U.S. military presence in South Korea and annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises that the North claims are an invasion rehearsal.

During the two summits, Kim may demand a security guarantee for his government, the scrapping of what he calls U.S. hostility and the easing or lifting of international sanctions on the North. The Kim-Trump meeting, not the Korean summit, will be the main venue for dealing with nukes because the United States must largely determine whether to accept the North's demands.

Kim, therefore, has an interest in making his meeting with Moon a success, especially following reconciliation in recent months that saw athletes from both countries parade together during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening ceremony and South Korean pop stars perform in Pyongyang.

It's much less clear how the Kim-Trump meeting will go. Trump's pick for secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said recently that "no one is under any illusions that we will reach a comprehensive agreement." Pompeo made a secret trip to meet with Kim and discuss the summit in recent weeks.

Trump seemed more optimistic after North Korea's announcement on Saturday, to which he responded with a tweet saying, "This is very good news for North Korea and the World" and "big progress!" He added that he's looking forward to his upcoming summit with Kim.

U.S. officials have said they want complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament by North Korea. Kim won't likely accept that anytime soon because he's closing in on his goal of developing nuclear missiles capable of striking the continental U.S. after decades of struggle and sacrifice.

After his country's most-powerful-to-date long-range missile test in November, Kim said the North had "finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force." Foreign experts, though, say the North still has a couple of technological barriers to overcome to build reliable intercontinental ballistic missiles.

One disarmament step Kim might have in mind is to freeze or dismantle an ICBM program that poses a direct threat to the United States. Go said Kim could also offer to allow international nuclear inspectors back into his country and promise to dismantle the North's old plutonium-producing reactor at its main nuclear complex because it has a uranium-enrichment plant that can also manufacture bombs.

North Korea could also submit a list of facilities or equipment to be disabled or dismantled and then allow the United States to inspect disarmament procedures. This process, however, could easily be disrupted if the North asks for excessive rewards for partial disarmament steps or the country fails to let outsiders inspect military bases or other sensitive places with possible nuclear weapons.

Kim Taewoo, a former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, also warned that a deal freezing the North's nuclear capability at current levels or scrapping an ICBM program while leaving intact shorter-range missiles that place South Korea within striking distance won't change security threats South Korea faces. The North already likely has the technology to mount atomic warheads on shorter-range missiles targeting South Korea and Japan.

He said the two upcoming summits are a "huge gamble" for all three leaders if they don't produce a breakthrough. If the summits fail, the world won't tolerate any future Kim Jong Un charm offensive because of a belief that he tried to use the summits to weaken sanctions or buy time to perfect his nuclear program. Trump would be seen as being duped. And Moon would have to choose whether to risk undermining ties with Washington by continuing to improve ties with North Korea.</s>WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump may meet with South Korea's president before his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to seek a denuclearization deal, a White House official said on Wednesday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is due to meet with Kim on Friday, and Trump has said he could have talks with the North Korean leader in late May or June.

White House national security adviser John Bolton spoke with his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong, on Wednesday and they discussed "looking into a meeting between the two presidents that would take place before the United States-North Korea summit," the official said.

The United States is pressing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and says it will keep up a policy of "maximum pressure" on Pyongyang through sanctions to achieve that goal.

Moon said last week that North Korea had expressed a commitment to "complete denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula, and Pyongyang said on Saturday it would immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests.</s>Washington: US President Donald Trump said Thursday that North Korea has made concessions to the U.S. in advance of a potential summit with Kim Jong Un in the coming months, while the U.S. hasn't given up anything.

Trump cited pledges on denuclearisation, testing, research, and on closing some nuclear sites.

"I'm saying to myself wait a minute, all of these things he's given up and we haven't even really that much asked them," Trump told "Fox & Friends." He added: "We would have asked them, but they gave it up before I even asked."

North Korea recently announced it will close its nuclear test site and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Kim has indicated he's also ready to discuss denuclearisation but it remains unclear whether he'd really be willing to give up nuclear weapons his nation already has, and what he'd want in return.

Trump has argued that the only concession he has made to North Korea was his surprise decision last month to accept Kim's invitation for a meeting — the first ever between the leaders of the United States and North Korea during six decades of hostility. "I never gave up anything," Trump repeated.

Trump acknowledged the rhetoric that both he and Kim deployed over the last year and the schoolyard taunts of nuclear "buttons" was "very, very nasty" and heightened fears of nuclear war. "This is a much more dangerous ballgame now, but I will tell you it's going very well."

He said "the nuclear war would have happened if you have weak people."

Trump also revealed more information about CIA Director Mike Pompeo's secret trip to North Korea this month, saying Pompeo wasn't supposed to meet with Kim, but that they ended up talking for more than an hour. Pompeo was the most senior U.S. official to meet a North Korean leader since 2000.

"They had a great meeting," Trump said.

The president's remarks came ahead of a summit scheduled for Friday between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a key U.S. ally. That meeting, to be held in the heavily militarized frontier between the rival Koreas, will be the clearest sign yet of whether it's possible to peacefully negotiate nuclear weapons away from the North.

The U.S.-North Korea summit is expected in May or early June.</s>Kanye West’s return to social media (namely Twitter) ushered in a wave of varying headlines featuring the Chicago native’s political views. Over the weekend, the father-of-three voiced his support for conservative speaker Candace Owens, tweeting that he’s a fan of her thought process. Now, on Monday morning (Apr. 23), the masses learned that Owens isn’t the only political being that’s receiving West’s praise.

On HOT 97’s “Ebro In The Morning,” the titular host shared a phone conversation that he recently had with the “All Of The Lights” rapper. The pair discussed freedom of speech, why West feels no one supported him during his mental breakdown in 2016, and his thoughts on Donald Trump.

According to Ebro, West said: “‘I do love Donald Trump.’ Kanye West, quote, ‘I love Donald Trump…I love Donald Trump.'” In 2016, West met with the then President-elect Trump and sent shockwaves throughout the world wide web when photos of their encounter surfaced. He also shared that if he voted in the election, he would’ve voted for the controversial bigwig.

West’s recent “stream of consciousness” on Twitter also garnered the eyes of Alex Jones, a right-wing radio show host, and purveyor of conspiracy theories. Jones extended an invitation to West to join him on his self-titled show “to see these control-freak vampires really go crazy.”</s>President Donald Trump offered new insights into his administration's preparations for a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as he defended his bellicose approach and "bigger button" tweet, saying only a "weak" leader would get the U.S. into nuclear war.

The details came just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in is set to meet Kim for a historic one-on-one meeting, but with Trump again casting doubt on his own summit next month or in early June.

"It could be that I walk out quickly –- with respect, but it could be. It could be that maybe the meeting doesn’t even take place. Who knows?" Trump told Fox News's "Fox and Friends."

The two sides have narrowed down possible locations to five, according to Trump, with three or four dates in the running. One senior U.S. official previously told ABC News that Trump had ruled out China and that it was highly unlikely Kim would agree to meet in the U.S. or Trump to meet in North Korea.

Possible venues include Europe – like Switzerland, where Kim went to university, and Sweden, the U.S.'s protecting power in North Korea -- South Asia, and the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, where Moon and Kim are set to meet Friday.

Trump also revealed more about the secret visit by CIA director Mike Pompeo – just confirmed as secretary of state – made to Pyongyang. Pompeo was not scheduled to meet with Kim, Trump said, but the North Koreans arranged it after he arrived.

"We have incredible pictures of the two talking and meeting, which I'd love to release if we can. I'll do that actually. It's not a bad idea," Trump said.

Pompeo also met with his North Korean "counterparts," Trump added, presumably in intelligence agencies. But his encounter with Kim lasted more than an hour, Trump said, and "they got along."

On Wednesday, Trump was criticized for his warm words for the strongman -- accused of starvation, torture, and brutal repression -- calling him "very open" and "very honorable."

Trump reiterated his approval Thursday, commending North Korea because, "They’ve given up denuclearization, testing, research – we’re going to close different sites."

But it's unclear if North Korea has really agreed to those things – or whether they've done so in good faith. The country announced on April 21 that it will stop nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and close its nuclear test site Punggye-ri, where it had conducted its six nuclear tests, including its largest last September that purportedly was a hydrogen bomb.

Whether that was a sign of them giving in, as Trump argued, is debatable. On state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim was quoted as saying, "Under the proven condition of complete nuclear weapons, we no longer need any nuclear tests, mid-range and intercontinental ballistic rocket tests, and that the nuclear test site in the northern area has also completed its mission."

In other words, the North had already achieved its goal of nuclear weapons, so it no longer needed testing or this facility. It also has yet to publicly say it has agreed to denuclearization – what Trump defined as "they get rid of their nukes."

Instead, the world has heard through intermediaries that North Korea has "expressed its commitment to denuclearization," as South Korea's Moon put it last week, or that it is North Korea's "consistent stand to be committed to denuclearization on the peninsula," as official Chinese news service Xinhua reported in March.

Either way, those are not the same thing as getting "rid of their nukes."

But Trump doubled down on Fox, saying, "We haven't even really that much asked him [to give things up] because we would've asked him, but they gave it up before I even asked."

The president attributed that success to his own combative rhetoric.

"It was very, very nasty, you know, with 'Little Rocket Man' and with the buttons and my button's bigger," Trump said. "Everybody said this guy is going to get us into nuclear war."

But it would be a "weak" leader that would get the U.S. into a nuclear war, he argued, and instead talks are moving forward.

"Now they're saying, 'Wow, it looks like that will be taken care of.' I think we're doing very well. Let's see what happens," he said.</s>President Donald Trump said Thursday that North Korea has made concessions to the U.S. in advance of a potential summit with Kim Jong Un in the coming months, while the U.S. hasn't given up anything.

Trump cited pledges on denuclearization, testing, research, and on closing some nuclear sites.

"I'm saying to myself wait a minute, all of these things he's given up and we haven't even really that much asked them," Trump told "Fox & Friends." He added: "We would have asked them, but they gave it up before I even asked."

North Korea recently announced it will close its nuclear test site and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Kim has indicated he's also ready to discuss denuclearization but it remains unclear whether he'd really be willing to give up nuclear weapons his nation already has, and what he'd want in return.

Trump has argued that the only concession he has made to North Korea was his surprise decision last month to accept Kim's invitation for a meeting — the first ever between the leaders of the United States and North Korea during six decades of hostility. "I never gave up anything," Trump repeated.

Trump acknowledged the rhetoric that both he and Kim deployed over the last year and the schoolyard taunts of nuclear "buttons" was "very, very nasty" and heightened fears of nuclear war. "This is a much more dangerous ballgame now, but I will tell you it's going very well."

He said "the nuclear war would have happened if you have weak people."

Trump also revealed more information about CIA Director Mike Pompeo's secret trip to North Korea this month, saying Pompeo wasn't supposed to meet with Kim, but that they ended up talking for more than an hour. Pompeo was the most senior U.S. official to meet a North Korean leader since 2000.

"They had a great meeting," Trump said.

The president's remarks came ahead of a summit scheduled for Friday between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a key U.S. ally. That meeting, to be held in the heavily militarized frontier between the rival Koreas, will be the clearest sign yet of whether it's possible to peacefully negotiate nuclear weapons away from the North.

The U.S.-North Korea summit is expected in May or early June.

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report.
South Korea president Moon Jae-in announces that he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in mid-May.