President Donald Trump hinted Thursday in a tweet that North Korea is preparing to release the three Americans he keeps in custody as a new nod to Washington, waiting for the US president to confirm the date and place of his possible meeting with the local leader, Kim Jong-u n.
"As everyone knows, the last administration spent a lot of time asking that the three hostages could be freed from a North Korean labor camp, without success ... Stay tuned!" Said the head of state in his usual style.
Trump's message coincided with information provided to several South Korean and international media such as the BBC or Reuters by an activist from that country, Choi Soung-yong, who said that according to his sources in the northern nation, the trio had already been transferred to a hotel located on the outskirts of the capital, Pyongyang.
The United States and North Korea "seem to have decided a date for the release of these people," Choi told Reuters. "North Korea will probably want to clarify the issue and recompose" the prisoners' aspect , he added.
The same character added that the three are locked in separate rooms of the same establishment, where they were moved last April.
A Washington spokesman quoted by CNN said the Pyongyang had proposed the release of the three prisoners when his Foreign Minister, Ri Yong-ho, visited Sweden in March.
However, a spokeswoman for the US State Department cited by the same means added that "it could not confirm the validity" of this information.
Trump acknowledged during a conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the release of the three Americans is a priority in the negotiations that both states have been holding for weeks.
"We have talked about them, we are negotiating," said the White House tenant, explaining that the current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo , already discussed this matter during his secret meeting with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.
Two of the inmates were former professors at one of the most prestigious educational centers in Pyongyang and the only private one in that capital, the University of Science and Technology (USTP), an institution run by evangelical religious.
Kim Hak-song was arrested in May 2017 at the capital train station when he was about to return to the Chinese town of Dandong.
A month earlier, in April, the North Korean security forces had retained their comrade, Kim Sang-duk , when he planned to board a plane at the Pyongyang airport after completing several weeks teaching at the USTP.
The last member of this group, Kim Dong-chul , is a businessman who was arrested in October 2015 and sentenced in April 2016 following a ten-year prison term for "subversion" and "espionage". The North Korean official agency, KCNA, assured that the agents had found him in possession of a USB where he kept material about the nuclear program of this country and other military information, which he himself said in an interview with CNN that a soldier had given him. local.
