Trump will not meet Kim without seeing 'concrete' steps - White House

Us, 10 Mar 2018 [Fik/News Sources]: US President Donald Trump will not meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unless he sees some "concrete" action by Pyongyang, the White House said on Friday.

It comes after a top South Korean official said on Thursday that Trump has accepted an offer of a summit from the North Korean leader and will meet with Kim Jong-un by May.

The South Korean national security director, Chung Eui-yong, told reporters of the planned meeting outside the White House, after briefing Trump and other top US officials about a rare meeting with Kim in the North Korean capital on Monday.

But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a news briefing that "the president will not have the meeting without seeing concrete steps and concrete actions take place by North Korea, so the president will actually be getting something." 

No serving American president has ever met with a North Korean leader. The US and North Korea do not even have formal diplomatic relations. 

The two nations remain in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty.

Trump made the decision to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un himself, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday, but the talks will take "some weeks" to arrange.

"That is a decision the president took himself. I spoke to him very early this morning about that decision and we had a very good conversation," Tillerson told reporters during a visit to the African nation of Djibouti.

"President Trump has said for some time that he was open to talks and he would willingly meet with Kim when conditions were right," the top US diplomat said. "And I think in the president's judgment that time has arrived now."