U.S. Says It’s Maintaining Pressure on North Korea

WASHINGTON — The Latest on the United States and North Korea (all times local):

8:05 a.m.

A U.S. ambassador says his country is maintaining a “maximum pressure campaign” to convince North Korea to denuclearize even as Washington prepares a summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Robert Wood, the top U.S. envoy to the U.N.-hosted Conference on Disarmament, says the U.S. believes the ongoing pressure campaign “has had an important impact in the North’s decision to return to the table.”

At a news conference Thursday ahead of a meeting next week on nuclear nonproliferation, Wood said the U.S. welcomed Pyongyang’s willingness to talk about denuclearization. He called the summit planned for late May or early June a “momentous time.”

Asked by a reporter, Wood said he has received “absolutely no instructions” about possibly easing the pressure on Pyongyang so as not to scuttle the summit.

___

12:45 a.m.

President Donald Trump says a meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is not a sure thing.

He says he could still pull out of a meeting if he feels it’s “not going to be fruitful.”

Trump says a summit with Kim could take place by early June, although the venue has yet to be decided.

It would be the first such leadership summit between the two nations after six decades of hostility following the Korean War.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Kim secretly met more than two weeks ago.