2017–18 North Korea crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he planned to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month or in early June and hoped the discussions would ultimately lead to an end of the North's nuclear weapons program.

North and South Korea are preparing for a bilateral meeting scheduled for the end of April, the Seoul group said on Wednesday.

"Both sides are conducting communications to prepare an inter-Korean meeting, but the active phase of these talks will begin next week when the relevant committee is formed," Pak Hohn told the agency.

President Donald Trump has agreed to a historic first meeting with Kim Jong Un in a stunning development in America’s high-stakes nuclear standoff with North Korea.

South Korea will dispatch a delegation led by senior security officials for a two-day visit to North Korea starting on March 5, the presidential Blue House announced on March 4, as U.S. President Donald Trump hinted that he is ready to talk to Pyongyang.

A historic meeting between the United States and North Korea was planned at the Winter Olympics, but Pyongyang canceled it at the last minute, the White House said in a statement, cited by the Guardian. That would have been the first high-level meeting between the Donald Trump administration and Pyongyang.

Twenty nations agreed on Jan. 16 to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Pyongyang it could trigger a military response if it did not choose negotiations.