Trump says North Korea has made major nuclear concessions

US president cited pledges on denuclearisation, testing, research, and on closing some nuclear sites

CIA director Mike Pompeo shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a secret visit over the Easter weekend. The White House via Getty Images

President Donald Trump said Thursday that North Korea has made concessions to the US in advance of a potential summit with Kim Jong Un in the coming months, while America hasn't given up anything.

Mr 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.

He 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," Mr Trump repeated.

The US president 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 Mr Pompeo wasn't supposed to meet with Kim, but that they ended up talking for more than an hour. Mr Pompeo was the most senior US 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. That meeting, to be held in the heavily militarised 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.